Word: scrolling
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Syrian in a red tarboosh. Kando, as he is called, is the trusted link between finders and keepers; he is technically a "fence," for all scroll finds are officially the property of the Jordanian government, but Eastern pragmatism finds no difficulty in blessing his undercover role...
...work is done in a long, light, white-paneled room filled with 20 trestled tables. There lie the scroll fragments, pressed flat and protected between plates of glass. Fragments are identified by labels bearing such symbols as 4 QM5, i.e., a fragment from Qumran Cave 4, under study by Milik, and belonging to the fifth plate in a series...
Time-Defying Leap. Next, the fragments are sorted according to script and (if possible) scribe. The mutations of Hebrew and Aramaic letters are classifiable by date-this science of paleography is, in fact, the most exact way of dating the scrolls. Each scribe, too, had his own characteristic handwriting ("ductus"), and a shred of personality makes a time-defying leap across the centuries when a scroll scholar recognizes the mannerisms of an Essene scribe who worked at a long table not unlike his own, 20 miles away and 2,000 years ago. In addition to matching up the script...
When did this happen? One possible answer centers around a foreign invader of Israel characterized by the scrolls as the Kittim. It would obviously make a considerable difference whether this term meant the Syrians (who dominated Israel from 198 B.C. to 141 B.C.) or the Romans (from 63 B.C. on). This one problem provides a perfect example of the kind of puzzle the scroll scholars are up against. The Kittim, according to the scrolls, are "swift and men of valor in battle." go "over smooth ground" and "trample the earth with their horses and with their animals; and from afar...
...scholar who thinks the Romans are the Kittim renders the "smooth ground" as "liquid plain," i.e., water. A scroll statement that the Kittim horsemen "fly like a vulture" is connected by the pro-Roman faction with the Roman eagle. The question of offering sacrifice to the standards is not as clear an argument for the Roman identification as it seems at first; it is doubtful whether the legions actually offered sacrifices to their standards before the time of the empire...