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© THE ISRAEL MUSEUM, JERUSALEM, BY YIGAEL YADIN

TEFILLIN, OR PHYLACTERIES, are small leather cases containing folded slips of parchment inscribed with Torah passages
from the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy. They are tied by straps to the wearer’s head and arm. The earliest tefillin come from the secluded settlement at Qumran and date to the late second or early first century B.C.E. Shown here is a tefillin case with four folded slips found at Qumran.