Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit at Reagan Library

While at the Reagan Library, we went to a special exhibit on the Dead Sea Scrolls. A traveling exhibit from the Israel Antiquities Authority is at the Library until September 2, 2025. 

Reagan Library entrance

The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of ancient writing discovered in 1947 in caves near the Dead Sea. A Bedouin shepherd made the discovery when he threw a rock into a cave and heard pottery shatter. Going in to investigate, he found jars that contained parchments that date back 2000 years and more. The find became an archeological sensation as many of the texts are from the Old Testament. Also, the other texts provide valuable insights into the thought and culture of Israel in the Second Temple Period (from 516 BC to AD 70). 

In addition to showing eight of the scrolls, the exhibit presents the larger context of the ancient world in the time of Christ. Artifacts from the Mediterranean area are exhibited.

Jewelry and household items on display

Floor mosaic quoting Psalm 118

A sample of the jars where the texts were found

The Sea of Galilee boat was discovered in 1986 during a drought. Fisherman spotted a boat shape in the bottom of the sea's northwest shore. It was excavated carefully and reconstituted with much of the original wood. It is twenty-seven feet long and seven and a half feet wide and is like the boats used by Jesus's disciples (at least the ones who were fishermen).

Boat from the Sea of Galilee

Some of the original wood

The Magdala Stone shows intricate temple carvings dating from the Second Temple Period.

Magdala Stone

More stones from the Temple

As a crossroads of the ancient world, a lot of wealth passed through the area and some of the more affluent locals would decorate their homes.

Decorative plaster and tiles from the period

Ossuaries are small boxes where the bones of the deceased would be kept. Once the flesh had rotted away to nothing, bones were stored in special decorative boxes so that individuals could be remembered. The boxes were placed in a family burial site.

A bone box--burial in the old days

Some of the displays have more mundane items, like this set of dice from antiquity. Playing games, even board games, has a long history!

Ancient dice

One room shows Masada, one of the Jewish holdouts during their war with Rome in the first century AD. The landscape provided natural defenses and it was one of the last places to fall.

Masada geography

Linen wrapper

Tyrian shekels are on display, the same coins describe in the Gospels where Jewish men would pay their yearly Temple tax.

Coins and jar

The stars of the exhibit are the various original scrolls preserved under glass. Scientists carefully pieced together many of the findings since the scrolls are so delicate and easily harmed. Computer imaging has helped manipulate pieces without harming them, trying to put together full documents from what was discovered.

Image of a restored scroll

Dead Sea Scroll

More bits of the scrolls

The last part of the exhibit is a history of the discovery and examination of the scrolls, along with a recreation of the Western Wall, the only remaining part of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Known as the Wailing Wall, people come there to pray. A tradition has sprung up where people write prayers on small pieces of paper and insert them into cracks in the Western Wall. 

Discovery timeline

Recreated Western Wall