Welcome to

SCROLLS FROM THE DEAD SEA

The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Scholarship

an Exhibit at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC

The exhibition Scrolls From the Dead Sea: The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Scholarship brings before the American people a selection from the scrolls which have been the subject of intense public interest. Over the years questions have be en raised about the scrolls' authenticity, about the people who hid them away, about the period in which they lived, about the secrets the scrolls reveal, and about the intentions of the scrolls' custodians in restricting access. The Library's exhibition describes the historical context of the scrolls and the Qumran community from whence they may have originated; it also relates the story of their discovery 2,000 years later. In addition, the exhibition encourages a better understanding of the challenge s and complexities connected with scroll research.

The exhibition is divided into five sections:

The original exhibtion included nearly 100 objects: scroll fragments, artifacts from the Qumran site, and books and illustrations from the Library of Congress' collections. The online exhibit includes images of 12 scroll fragments and 29 other objects lo aned by the Israel Antiquities Authority for this exhibition.

You may view the exhibit by selecting any of the above sections or you may choose to browse the entire exhibit by selecting

More information about the exhibit can be found in There is a free EXPO Shuttle Bus waiting outside. It is very comfortable and can quickly take you to other exciting EXPO exhibits. It also makes a routine stop at th e EXPO Ticket Office.

Next to the entrance door, there is the EXPO Bulletin Board, with all kinds of notes from various visitors. Among other things, it contains up to date information from the EXPO organization.

At the EXPO Book Store you can pick up information about how to order the exhibit's catalog.

The text and images in the Online Exhibit SCROLLS FROM THE DEAD SEA: THE ANCIENT LIBRARY OF QUMRAN AND MODERN SCHOLARSHIP are for the personal use of students, scholars, and the public. Any commercial use or publication of them is strictly prohibited .

Note: This hypertext exhibit contains inlined images in GIF format. The tiny pictures you see in the text are links to full size GIF equivalents (each of which is 100 to 400 KB). Just click on the tiny ones to see the big ones.

This hypermedia interface to SCROLLS FROM THE DEAD SEA: The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Scholarship was done by Jeff Barry, jeff@utkux.utcc.utk.edu. The materials in this exhibit have been reorganized by Jeff Barry to better suit a hypermedia format; th erefore, this hypermedia exhibit may provide a different interpretation of the Scrolls than that provided by the original Library of Congress exhibit.

The original data was copied by ftp from seq1.loc.gov. Questions or comments about the online exhibit should be sent to K.D. Ellis, Special Projects Office, Library of Congress, Washinton, D.C. 20540-9100 (Internet address: kell@seq1.loc.gov)