Dead Sea Scrolls Research Council: Fragments
New Carbon-14 Tests on Dead Sea Scrolls
As a result of an initiative by a BAR reader, new carbon-14 tests will be performed on selected Dead Sea Scrolls in an effort to determine their dates with greater confidence.
In Queries & Comments, BAR 18:03, we printed a letter from Greg Dougna, of the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University, asking for additional carbon-14 tests and offering to pay for them. In our editorial reply following the letter, we asked Mr. Dougna to identify the texts he wanted tested and to send us a check—and we’d try to get it done.
Mr. Dougna replied that he would like to have tested the earliest-dated text (by paleography) of the Damascus Document. Since the Damascus Document reflects the establishment of the Qumran community, the community must have been established by the time of the earliest copy of the Damascus Document. Mr. Dougna would like this text carbon dated by three different laboratories and says he has set aside $1800 to pay for these tests.
We sent Mr. Dougna’s letter to Israel Antiquities Director Amir Drori. “Why not do it?” we asked.
General Drori promptly referred the matter to the Scrolls Advisory Committee and we soon received a copy of a letter sent by chief scroll editor Emanuel Tov to Mr. Dougna, telling him that the Advisory Committee of the Israel Antiquities Authority had decided to have further C-14 tests performed. Between 10 and 20 different texts will be tested, including the one requested by Mr. Dougna. The Zurich lab that has been performing the tests, the Institut fur Mittelenergiephysick, has not charged for its work; if a charge is made, Tov noted, Dougna may be asked to pay for the test of the Damascus Document.
Fair enough! And a breath of fresh air in the handling of such a request—prompt and sensible. Hats off to the Israel Antiquities Authority, its Scroll Advisory Committee and chief scroll editor Emanuel Tov.
If readers have any particular documents they want tested, please let us hear from you.
Carbon-14 tests have improved enormously in recent years. When carbon-14 tests were first developed in 1947, several grams of material were needed to perform the test. The destruction of so much original material was an obstacle to widespread use of the test. The original form of the test measured the amount of radioactivity of carbon-14 atoms in the material. More recently a new method, known as AMS (Accelerated Mass Spectometry), has been developed that measures the weight of the C-14 atoms instead of the amount of radioactivity. With this method only milligrams of material are needed—a thousand times less than what was needed 45 years ago.