DISCOVERY AND PURCHASE OF THE SCROLLS

fragments, but they threw valuable archaeological data, such as linen wrappings and sherds from the broken jars, onto a rubbish dump outside. Kando had meanwhile deposited the scrolls in his possession with the Metropolitan, as security—he now claims—for £24. The church leader began to hawk these, along with some fragments, around the various scholastic institutions of Jerusalem to get an idea of their worth. It seems that one of the scrolls was shown to the late Professor E. L. Sukenik of the Hebrew University, who kept it for some time and then set about finding the rest of the scrolls, as he had realized they were very old and of considerable value. He made a perilous journey to Bethlehem, for by now the Jewish-Arab hostilities had become open warfare following the withdrawal of the Mandate. There, he seems to have contacted Kando and brought away three more scrolls. This gentleman now began to get scared, afraid that news of the illegal excavations would leak out and that he would rightly be held responsible by the authorities. He therefore took the precaution of burying some of the largest fragments from the cave in his garden at Bethlehem. Unfortunately, the soil of Kando’s back garden is somewhat different from the parched dust of the Qumran The archaeological site near where the scrolls were discovered. caves, and when he later went to retrieve them, he found only several lumps of sticky glue.

Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, the Syrian Metropolitan continued his rounds, trying to discover if the scrolls were really old. Finally, on 18 February 1948, he called the American School of Oriental Research and spoke to Dr. John C. Trever, who had been left in temporary charge of the establishment during the Director's absence. He told Trever that during a clear-out of his library at the convent, he had found some old Hebrew manuscripts on which he would like advice. An appointment was made for the next day, and the Metropolitan sent the scrolls around in an old suitcase, delivered by Father Butros Sowmy and his brother. After some hasty comparing of pictures of other ancient Hebrew manuscripts and complicated research into dictionaries and concordances, Trever