New Manuscripts Discovered at Qumran

A few days ago, an international research seminar on "The History of the Caves of Qumran" was held in Lugano, Switzerland (20-21 February); the program of that seminar may be found here. One participant, Drew Longacre, reports that "Yonatan Adler announced the discovery of 9 (possibly 10) previously unknown tefillin slips found inside of unopened tefillin cases from Qumran. The slips have not yet been opened and read, but they promise to be very interesting." There is also an Italian online news article confirming this report, with an image of what may be the tefillin in question (see image on the left). I have translated this Italian article into English below, with the help of Google Translate. Thanks to David Eastman for bringing this to my attention.

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"LUGANO - During the International Research Seminar on "The History of the Caves of Qumran," organized by the Institute of Culture and Archaeology of the Biblical lands of the Faculty of Theology of Lugano (chaired by Prof. Dr. Giorgio Paximadi), the discovery of new manuscripts of Qumran was announced. 

Working on the materials from the archaeological excavations of the 50s, archaeologist Yonatan Adler has found some phylacteries (the boxes - used by religious Jews - which contain small manuscript scrolls with a biblical text) intact. It was possible to detect in them the manuscripts thanks to special photography (multispectral imaging) carried out by the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The phylacteries are from Qumran caves 4 and 5, excavated in 1952 by Roland de Vaux. Among the material processed by the laboratory for the conservation of the scrolls of the Israel Antiquities Authority were found three packs containing nine small manuscript scrolls.

"It does not happen every day to discover new manuscripts. It was really a great feeling," said Yonatan Adler, Ariel University. "I am very proud that in our laboratory, using the most advanced technologies, we can reconstruct the history of two thousand years ago," said Pnina Shor, director of the laboratory for the conservation of the scrolls of the Israel Antiquities Authority."