Image Gallery
Dead Sea Scrolls Jars
Dead Sea Scrolls jars from Qumran (Khirbet Qumran or Wadi Qumran), West Bank of the Jordan River, near the north part of the Dead Sea, modern-day State of Israel.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, or Qumran Caves Scrolls, are parchment and papyrus scrolls that were found rolled-up inside special jars with tight-fitting covers, which helped preserve them. The jars were locally made in the Dead Sea area. The Dead Sea Scrolls are ancient Jewish religious manuscripts. The majority were written in Hebrew script on leather or papyrus; however, many were written in Aramaic, Greek, and Nabatean-Aramaic. They were rolled-up and stored in specific jars with tight-fitting covers. When initially found, they were either scrolls or fragments of manuscripts or texts of previous complete scrolls; some of them were torn into thousands of fragments. Cave 4 originally contained about three-quarters of the scrolls. The precise dating of the scrolls is unknown; scholars give the range of 408 BCE to 318 CE.
The Jordan Museum, Amman.
Questions & Answers
Is the oldest dam in the world in Jordan?
- Yes, the oldest dam in the world is the Saad Jawa Dam in Jordan, dated to c. 3000 BCE.
Where is Petra located?
- Petra, a city of the Nabateans, is located in Jordan. The Treasury building of Petra is featured in the 1989 film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
How many archaeological sites are there in Jordan?
- There are over 100,000 archaeological sites in Jordan, spanning thousands of years.
Where was the first bread baked in the world?
- Archaeological evidence suggests bread was first baked in the Black Desert in the region of modern-day Jordan. Charred bread, dated to at least c. 11,600 BCE, has been found there.
