File:Levit-b.jpg

Summary

The Leviticus Scroll

• Va-Yikrah
• 11Q1(PaleoLev)
• Parchment
• Copied late second centuryÄearly first century B.C.E.
• Height 10.9 cm (4 1/4 in.), length 100.2 cm (39 1/2 in.)
• Courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority

This scroll was discovered in 1956, when a group of Ta`amireh Bedouin happened on Cave 11, but it was first unrolled fourteen years later, at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Inscribed in the scroll are parts of the final chapters (22-27) of Leviticus, the third book in the Pentateuch, which expounds laws of sacrifice, atonement, and holiness. This is the lowermost portion (approximately one-fifth of the original height) of the final six columns of the original manuscript. Eighteen small fragments also belong to this scroll. The additional fragments of this manuscript are from preceding chapters: Lev. 4, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 18-22.

The Leviticus Scroll was written in an ancient Hebrew script often referred to as paleo-Hebrew. The almost uniform direction of the downstrokes, sloping to the left, indicates an experienced, rapid, and rhythmic hand of a single scribe. The text was penned on the grain side of a sheep skin. Both vertical and horizontal lines were drawn. The vertical lines aligned the columns and margins; the horizontal lines served as guidelines from which the scribe suspended his letters. Dots served as word-spacers.

Reference: Freedman, D. N., and K. A. Mathews. The Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll. Winona Lake, Indiana, 1985.

Copyright status

This is public domain because it is from the library of congress

Source

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/scrolls/scr3.html