The Copper Scroll: A Treasure Map Nobody Can Follow
March 14, 1952
Most of the Dead Sea Scrolls are religious writings on leather or papyrus. One is different in almost every way. Found in a cave above the Dead Sea in 1952, it was hammered into thin sheets of copper, it was so corroded that it had to be sawn into strips before anyone could read it, and its text is not scripture at all. It is a list of 64 places where gold, silver and sacred objects were supposedly hidden. Nobody has ever found any of them.
The odd one out
The famous discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls began, as our Dead Sea Scrolls story explains, with Bedouin shepherds and a cave near Qumran. The Copper Scroll came later and in a different way. Wikipedia says it was found by archaeologists on 14 March 1952 at the back of Cave 3, the last of 15 items found there, which is why it carries the label 3Q15. The Hebrew University's Virtual Qumran project also dates the find to 1952 in Cave 3, and stresses what made it unique: it was engraved on metal, while the rest of the Qumran collection was written in ink on leather or papyrus.
Wikipedia adds that the metal was copper alloyed with about one percent tin, and that it had corroded right through into brittle oxide. What looked like two separate rolls was in fact a single sheet, originally about 2.4 metres long. The San Diego Natural History Museum, which displayed a fragment in 2007, gives a similar length of about eight feet.
Cutting it open
A rolled sheet of crumbling copper cannot be unrolled. According to Wikipedia, the Jordanian authorities, on the advice of the British scholar John Allegro, sent it to the Manchester College of Technology in England, where Professor H. Wright Baker sliced it into 23 strips in 1955 and 1956. The San Diego museum likewise notes that researchers cut the scroll into small sections in order to photograph and read it. Only then did it become clear that the two rolls were parts of one document.
Reading it was still hard. The text was punched into the metal with a hammer and chisel. Both the San Diego museum and Wikipedia say its Hebrew differs from all the other scrolls; Wikipedia describes it as closer to the later Hebrew of the Mishnah, with many words not found in the Bible, and notes that some scholars think the engraver copied an original he did not fully understand. Seven of the entries are followed by small groups of Greek letters whose meaning is still argued over.
What the scroll says
Instead of prayers or prophecy, the scroll is an inventory. Wikipedia says 63 of its 64 entries describe gold and silver, along with vessels used for tithes, a few locations holding scrolls and possibly priestly garments. The San Diego museum summarises it as 64 supposed hiding places holding, in total, more than 100 tons of precious metal, scrolls and priestly objects. The Hebrew University simply calls it a treasure map.
Each entry follows a pattern: a general place, a more exact spot, often a distance to dig, and what lies there. The very first line, in the translation given by Wikipedia, sends the reader to a ruin in the Valley of Achor, under the steps on the east side, forty cubits away, to find a silver chest weighing seventeen talents. Others mention cisterns, tombs and a salt pit. The last entry points to a second copy with more details. That copy has never been found.
Real treasure or legend?
Scholars disagree about almost everything here, and the sources are open about it. The Hebrew University's project lays out the two main camps. Those who take the list at face value have suggested the treasure belonged to the Qumran community, to the Jerusalem Temple, perhaps hidden from the Romans, or to Jewish rebels in the Bar Kokhba revolt of around 135 AD. Others doubt that any single group could have owned such enormous amounts of gold and silver, and see the scroll as a fictional version of traditional hidden-treasure folklore. Wikipedia records the same split and notes that the first editor, Józef Milik, at first thought it was folklore before changing his view of where it came from.
Dating it does not settle matters. Wikipedia lists estimates ranging from 25 to 75 AD, on the evidence of the handwriting, to 70 to 135 AD, with several scholars converging on about 70 AD. The San Diego museum labels it late Herodian, 25 to 75 AD. A later date would make a link with the Qumran settlement, destroyed decades earlier, harder to sustain.
The scale also raises eyebrows. Wikipedia notes that a single entry lists 900 talents of silver, which on one estimate would be about 30 tons. Whether ancient talents were really meant, or the numbers were symbolic, is unknown.
The hunt
Unsurprisingly, people went looking. The San Diego museum says efforts to decode the locations and hunt for the treasure scandalised many scholars, and that no one has found the riches described. Wikipedia mentions a minority view that one listed treasure might have been in the Cave of Letters, but that link is unproven. Part of the problem is that the place names were written for readers who knew the landscape intimately, two thousand years ago. Phrases like "the old washer's chamber" meant something then; they are almost impossible to locate now.
Legend vs evidence
Legend: The scroll is a map to the lost Temple treasure. Evidence: It is a real ancient document listing hidden valuables, but who wrote it, and whether the treasure existed, is unknown. The Temple theory is one of several.
Legend: Someone secretly found the treasure. Evidence: There is no evidence that any listed hoard has ever been recovered.
Since 2013, Wikipedia says, the Copper Scroll has been displayed at the Jordan Museum in Amman. It remains the strangest of the Dead Sea Scrolls: a document made to last for ever, pointing to places nobody can now find.
Further reading
- Hebrew University, Virtual Qumran: Copper Scroll
- San Diego Natural History Museum: The Copper Scroll (3Q15)
- Wikipedia: Copper Scroll