TORONTO - One of the most significant archeological finds of the 20th century will soon be on display at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum.
Discovered 60 years ago by a Bedouin goat herder, the Dead Sea Scrolls are considered the earliest record of biblical patriarchs and prophets known to Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Seventeen scrolls of parchment and papyrus, including fragments from the books of Genesis, Deuteronomy and Psalms, and some of the oldest written expressions of the Ten Commandments, will be on display to the public beginning Saturday.
The exhibition will take place despite the protests of Palestinian officials, who in April sent letters to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and top ROM executives trying to halt the exhibition, arguing the scrolls were acquired illegally from Palestinian territory.
Despite the criticism, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said Wednesday he welcomes the opportunity to make Toronto a global destination for world culture and history.
"My hope is that people of all ages, faiths and backgrounds will come together to marvel at the scrolls and take this as an opportunity to discuss its meaning," McGuinty said.
"In our age, characterized by texting, emailing, blogging and Twittering, words have become so commonplace that sometimes they seem to lose their value. These words stand out and not even time can diminish them."
"This is where conversations begin. It is where we can dispute and debate history."
For 2,000 years, the scrolls were confined to 11 desert caves above the salt-laden waters of the Dead Sea between Israel and Jordan.
After decades of excavations, a total of 900 scrolls written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek dating from about 350 BC to AD 68 were found.
The ROM exhibition will also feature more than 200 artifacts such as cylindrical jars, cooking pots, roof tiles and carved-bone dice -- some presented for the first time -- that were found with the scrolls.
Biblical scholars and international speakers from around the world will be visiting the ROM for a series of lectures to discuss the authorship of the scrolls and their importance today for interfaith dialogue.
"These scrolls, these fragmented, aged parchments, are truly a link between us and the past," said scrolls curator Risa Levitt Kohn, who also directs the Jewish Studies Program at San Diego State University.
ROM director and CEO William Thorsell said in a release that he hopes the sacred documents will "launch provocative and enlightening interfaith discussions."
Because of the delicate state of the documents -- which in most cases were found wrapped in clothes or placed in jars -- their preservation has been a major challenge, said Pnina Shor, head of the department of artifacts treatment and conservation at the Israel Antiquities Authority.
"In probably five years, the scrolls will be available online after a complex digitalization process involving the use of advanced NASA technologies," Shor said.
"In most cases the tiny fragments had to be meticulously pieced back together. Removing tapes to avoid that sticky sediments penetrate on them has been one of the main tasks of curators."
The exhibition runs from June 27 to Jan. 3, 2010.
