The Mystery of the Copper Scroll of Qumran

by Robert Feather

  The Dead Sea

  Jericho

  Jerusalem

  Mount Gerizim*38

  Quite specific depositories of the treasure are pinpointed by John Allegro within the ruins of the Qumran-Essene monastery at Khirbet Qumran; near Ain Farah; in the Antonia fortress at Haram; at Wilson’s Arch in Haram; at tombs in the Kidron Valley; on the Mount of Olives and Mount Gerizim and in Jerusalem.1

  Many of the locations mentioned appear to refer to Jerusalem, or its close vicinity. Since it would not be wise to go digging at the Temple site – for fear of attracting a hail of machine-gun fire as official permission is difficult to obtain – for reasons of religious sensitivity, I will concentrate on locations that can possibly be explored and excavated. The same considerations apply to what are now largely built-up areas of Jerusalem. Although locations in Jerusalem are difficult to excavate, over a period of forty-five years none of the suggested locations has yielded any treasures.

  From the deductions that I have made and the conclusions reached earlier in this book, there are sufficient clues to identify additional candidate sites where parts of the treasures mentioned in the Copper Scroll may be found. Careful study of these sites will assist anyone determined enough to venture forth with spade, metal detector and the necessary permits.

  The sites are within nearby proximity, or easy access, to:

  El-Amarna – ancient Akhetaten – in northern Egypt

  Faiyum, Hawara and the Delta regions of northern Egypt

  Elephantine Island in southern Egypt, and Heliopolis near Cairo.

  Lake Tana, in Ethiopia

  The First Temple at Jerusalem

  The Caves of Qumran on the Dead Sea

  Mount Gerizim in northern Israel

  You may find it useful to refer back to Figure 1, the relational map of the area, as I discuss the individual sites.

  El-Amarna

  With the sudden demise of Akhenaten, at a relatively young middle-age, the rule of the Kingdom fell to Tutankahmun, his brother (and husband of his daughter), who was still a child, following a brief interlude by the enigmatic Smenkhkare. Neither of these two pharaohs had the political strength to resist the machinations of the priests of Thebes, who may have started to move against Akhenaten’s power bases as soon as they heard of his imminent death.

  The time to squirrel away the treasures of the Great Temple, Palace, and Treasury of Akhetaten may therefore not have been too long. The sheer weights and volumes involved could have amounted to several tonnes of precious metals and valuables. The work could not be entrusted to labourers – unless they were to be killed subsequently – so the hard graft had to be done by the caucus of priests. It would also seem inevitable that, with such a volume of treasure, it would not have all been hidden in one location but would have been spread around to increase the chances of some of it remaining undetected.

  The greater the weight of treasures to be hidden, the less the likely distance of travel from the source. The most probable areas, therefore, are in the immediate vicinity of the Great Temple..

  Stretching half a kilometre to the north and south of the Temple complex before the North and South City suburbs would have been reached, there are two unexcavated areas of land. These are possible sites for treasure burials but are relatively unlikely in view of the proximity of workmen’s villages and the danger of spying eyes.

  However, going south of the present day village of El-Till, and following the track beside the edge of the cultivated land, we are walking along what would have been the main street of Akhetaten. Where the city’s main administrative centre would have been is now marked by two mudbrick pylons – all that remains of a bridge that connected the ‘King’s House’, to the east, with the Official Palace, to the west. This enormous complex of buildings has never been fully excavated and contains numerous inexplicable features. Here, under cover of darkness, many of the treasures of the Palace and King’s residence could have been secreted.

  Figure 16: Site of Akhetaten showing view of Great Temple, stelae and tombs.

  A most promising location for the treasures of the Temple lies in the vicinity of the Tomb of Akhenaten and the southern group of private tombs. Already prepared for him during his lifetime, it would have been a natural place for the priests to consider.2 It lies a suitably safe and secluded 12km east of Amarna, along the ‘Royal Wadi’ (today, inaccessible to motor vehicles).

  The private tombs, many with sand-blocked entrances, face the village of Hagg Qandil and the public are not allowed access. This, however, is a likely place where some of the treasure of the Temple of Akhenaten may be found.

  Faiyum and the Delta Region

  Another compelling location for some of Akhenaten’s treasure to have been hidden lies some distance from Amarna, at the place where Joseph’s family were settled. It is the Faiyum area, adjacent to the outfall of the Bahr (River) Jusuf, at Lake Qarun.

  During Joseph’s lifetime, Lake Moeris, as it was then known, would have been far more extensive, and I looked for an area that might have contained extensive ruined buildings and temples – hidden labyrinths. Taking the Hawara road you arrive at Medinet El-Faiyum.3 A secondary road runs northwest to Kiman Fares, once known as Crocodilopolis, where you come across an extensive area of town ruins, which stretch over four square kilometres. Here the Hebrews may have been set to work by Ramses II to rebuild temples dating back to the Middle Kingdom period, and shrines for the worship of the sacred crocodiles.

  A Biblical reference, in Genesis 47:11, indicates that the Hebrews were associated with the Delta region of the Nile:

  And Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Ramses, as Pharaoh had commanded.

  I suggested earlier (in Chapter 10) that the Faiyum region, rather than the Delta region, was where the Hebrews were originally settled. However, the Biblical references to Ramses and Pithom (previously Avaris and Tanis) indicate that the Hebrews were also set to work by Ramses II to build storehouses for him at these sites. So it is conceivable that these places of storage could have been sites from where Moses gathered some of his people for the Exodus, and at the same time secreted the details of the treasures that could not be carried with them from Egypt.

  Elephantine and Heliopolis

  After the priests of Akhenaten fled the destruction of Akhetaten, I suggested that some of them settled at the Island of Elephantine and at Heliopolis, so both these areas warrant re-evaluation and excavation.

  Archaeological evidence shows, as we have previously noted, that there was a pseudo-Judaic militaristic community at Elephantine on the extreme southern borders of Egypt, at least as early as the seventh century BCE.4 The relatively ‘certain’ early date shows that they were not ‘Dispersees’ (Diaspora) from the fall of the First Temple in 586 BCE but had arrived from somewhere other than Israel. Justification for this assertion needs a fuller discussion and I will go into more detail later in Chapter 19.

  Lake Tana

  When the Community at Elephantine suddenly disappeared in 410 BCE, it is not unfeasible that the survivors journeyed deep into Ethiopian territory and eventually settled on the shores of Lake Tana in the northern part of the country. Like the Judaic Community of Elephantine, the Community of Lake Tana, now known as Falashas, had, and still have, unusual customs and practices, reflecting a people who had not participated in the mainstream Judaism of Canaan. Like the Essenes they did not keep Purim*39 or the ceremonies related to the Dedication of the Temple.

  It is possible that the ancestors of the Falashas took away to Ethiopia some residual treasures, but their location would and could not have been recorded in the Copper Scroll of the Essenes.

  The First Temple at Jerusalem

  The impending threat of the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians in the years before 586 BCE must have wrought untold anxiety on the population. As guardians of the Holy incunabula and treasures that came out
of Egypt, the priests of the Temple would certainly have taken the opportunity to carry many of the sacred and valuable items to hiding places in or near Jerusalem.

  When Nebuchadnezzar’s iron fist finally reached Jerusalem, those treasures that were not saved were carried off by the Babylonians as spoils of war and are lost to the mists of time.

  Whilst it has not been possible to excavate fully at the site where the Temple is thought to have stood because the Dome of the Rock and Muslim Temple of Al Ahxsa now occupy a large area of the Holy Mound, it is unlikely that any holy relics or treasure described in the Copper Scroll would be found there.

  The Caves at Qumran

  Many textural treasures have already come out of the finestriated hills of Qumran since the accidental finding of the first of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947. There may be more ‘textual’ treasures to be discovered, but the area has been explored so intensively that the likelihood of large amounts of treasure being found becomes increasingly remote.

  CRACKING THE CODE OF THE COPPER SCROLL

  At this stage in my researches I went back to the original source – to the Copper Scroll itself – to reconsider the mixture of Egyptian and ancient Hebrew exhibited in it. I came to the intriguing possibility that the Copper Scroll refers to both Israeli and Egyptian locations. Having isolated the most likely general areas for the treasures of Akhenaten to be found, I started to home in on more exact locations, with the help of the Copper Scroll.

  Going back to the scroll, I needed to address a number of questions before I could make more progress:

  Does the scroll contain some kind of code that, once solved, will lead to the treasures it describes?

  Were the Qumran-Essenes prone to writing in code?

  If so, are any other Dead Sea Scrolls written in code?

  The answer to all these questions proved to be ‘yes’.

  When referring to their own Community, the Qumran-Essenes often used cryptic codes, mirror writing and hidden messages within their own texts.

  Looking at several examples of other Dead Sea Scrolls, it became immediately obvious that the Qumran-Essenes, indeed, had a fondness for codes, and this predilection gave me an insight into the quirky minds of these hermit-like people. More importantly, it unambiguously showed the scribes to be familiar with Egyptian symbols in use between 1500 and 1200 BCE, a period comfortably encompassing the reign of Pharaoh Akhenaten.

  One example is Scroll 4Q186 (dealing with horoscopes), which includes Greek, square-form Hebrew and Paleo-Hebrew letters encrypted as mirror writing.

  Another scroll, known as the ‘Admonitions of the Sons of Dawn’, was found in Cave 4 at Qumran. This scroll is different from other scrolls. It begins in Hebrew, with a mention of the ‘Maskil’ (‘Teacher’), and then converts to apparently arbitrary cryptic symbols, plus a void character that is quite unknown in the Hebrew alphabet!

  Robert Eisenman and Michael Wise5 deciphered the text of the ‘Admonitions’ scroll by equating what appeared to them to be ‘twenty-three more or less arbitrary symbols’ with Hebrew letter equivalents. When I looked closely at the apparently random cryptic symbols, it became clear that they are mainly Egyptian in origin. Many of the symbols are based on hieroglyphics or hieratic writing – a cursive form of hieroglyphics used by Egyptian priests. For example, the symbol used for the Hebrew ‘aleph’ is part of the sound ‘meni’ made from the hieroglyphic sign turned through 90º. The symbol for the Hebrew letter ‘shin’ is the Egyptian hieroglyph for a ‘wall’. The symbol below – the Hebrew letter ‘zahde’ – is the Egyptian ‘ankh’ sign for ‘life’.

  Why would the Qumran-Essenes still utilize an ancient form of Egyptian writing, closely related to the writing that Moses must have used in recording the early Old Testament texts? The answer can only be that ancient Egyptian writing was still important to them, and part of their inheritance.6

  An outline of the types of language and writing, in use in the Middle East from earliest times up to the period when the Dead Sea Scrolls were written will be helpful in assessing the types of writing that were available to the Qumran-Essenes.

  These examples of the use of codes by the Qumran-Essenes made me fairly confident that the interspersion of Greek upper case letters in the Copper Scroll, which do not have an immediately obvious meaning, indicated that this Scroll falls into the category of having a hidden meaning. I was already suspicious of the numbering system used in the scroll, as it is not equatable with the Hebrew format in use at the time of its engraving around the time of Jesus but is identifiable with much earlier dates. The treasure weight dimensions (see Chapter 2) are also clearly exaggerations if taken as Hebrew weights. It would therefore be naive to take the locations and related numbers, as described in the Copper Scroll, at face value.

  As Greek-language influences in Judaea did not appear until after 250 BCE, it is safe to conclude that the Copper Scroll was not engraved until after this date. Its rough-and-ready writing indicates that it was a copy of an earlier document done with some haste. It is written in a form of Hebrew unlike that used in any of the other Dead Sea Scrolls, with previously unknown word forms and numerous mistakes by the copyist. I believe that part of the scroll was copied from an original document written in Egyptian hieratic.

  Table 4: Forms of Writing and Language in the Ancient Middle East

  EGYPT

  Hieroglyphs Pictorial symbols from 2nd Dynasty onwards (3000 BCE)

  Hieratic Cursive writing form of hieroglyphs, mainly used by priests from 11th Dynasty onwards (2500 BCE)

  Demotic (Enchorial) Business and social form of Hieratic from 900 BCE–300 CE

  Greek From 330 BCE onwards7

  Coptic Egyptian language written in Greek letters 200 BCE onwards

  MESOPOTAMIA

  Cuneiform Pictorial symbols pre-1800 BCE

  Akkadian Semitic language, also in international use from 1500 BCE onwards

  Aramaic, Ancient North Semitic pre-1000 BCE

  CANAAN

  Ugarit 1500 BCE

  Proto-Canaanite

  (Western Semitic) 1400 BCE

  Phoenician

  (form of Proto-Canaanite) 1100 BCE

  Paleo-Hebrew c.800 BCE

  Aramaic, Intermediate c.600 BCE Semitic language

  Western Aramaic (language of the Palestinian Talmud)

  Eastern Aramaic (language (with Syriac) of the Babylonian Talmud)

  Aramaic, International Widespread use in and beyond the Middle East from 6th century BCE (language of the Elephantine papyri and parts of the Old Testament)

  Hebrew (Square Form) c.200 BCE

  Greek after 200 BCE

  Latin after 67 BCE

  THE TRANSLATIONS OF 3Q15 – THE COPPER SCROLL

  This three- or even four-fold alloying of textual styles in the Copper Scroll has caused endless controversy over establishing a true meaning and syntax. But if 3Q15 is considered as an initial translation of a list that had been added to and amended and then copied again, many of the linguistic difficulties begin to fall away.

  I believe the first translation and/or copying probably took place around 700–600 BCE or earlier, and the second copying around 40–60 CE. When the first translation took place, the scribe utilized the language of early paleo-Hebrew. With the second copying, amendments were incorporated to reflect the pre-Mishnaic interpretation (see Glossary), but much of the early Bible Hebrew wording was retained, as were the ancient Egyptian numbering and weighing systems. Running right through from the original hieratic document, into the ancient Hebrew and the pre-Mishnaic Hebrew mixture, are symbols and numbering systems that can be dated to well before 1200 BCE. Occasionally the scribe or revisionist could not resist tinkering with what must have been for him an antiquated method of numbering; for example, he changed the ‘khaff’ unit related to the weights to indicate it was a double ‘khaff’ or KK.

  The numbering system in the scroll is inconsistent with first century CE Judaea. It is based on a single stroke fo
r each individual unit with breaks of ten, with the smallest number to the left. It uses the same symbols and doubling of ten system used in Egypt at and before the time of Akhenaten. This system is identical to that found in the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, now in the British Museum, which has been dated to c.1550 BCE8 (see Plate 3). Clearly the Copper Scroll has an allegiance to much earlier Egyptian times.

  There is still no definitive translation of the scroll from the large numbers that exist, and so I have worked from four of the main versions that are most widely accepted by the majority of scholars as being of potential authority, adding my own interpretations where I diverge from all of their variants. The four translations I have worked from are by John Allegro, Garcia Martinez, Geza Vermes and Al Wolters.9 However, I shall endeavour to describe the main reasons for my selections as we go through the relevant parts of the text.

  Each of the descriptions of the sixty-four treasure locations listed in the Copper Scroll are presented in the text in a similar pattern:

  Figure 17: Schematic showing the development of writing forms.

  a) a specific description of the hiding place

  b) a secondary description of the hiding place

  c) an instruction to dig or measure

  d) the distance from a position by numbers of cubits

  e) a description of the treasure

  f) Greek letters (after seven of the locations).

  A translation of Column 1 of the Copper Scroll text is typical of the style and content.

  the ruin which is in the valley, pass under

  the steps leading to the East

  40 cubits (…) a chest of money and its total

  the weight of 17 talents. KεN

  In the sepulchral monument, in the third course:

  one hundred gold ingots. In the great cistern of the courtyard

  of the peri-style, in a hollow in the floor covered with sediment, in front of the upper opening: nine hundred talents.