Another Nabataean Artifact
Holding in my hand an authentic Nabataean bronze coin, and admiring my faithful replica of an item of Nabataean jewelry, I looked forward to my next project. I determined to produce a copy of an extant ancient scroll, a legal document once possessed by a young woman, and written in the cursive Nabataean script.
A Cave of Letters
In the early 1950s, a cave was discovered just west of the Dead Sea and south of Qumran. Boulders that had collapsed from the cave’s roof blocked any significant exploration. But nearly a decade later in 1961, the archaeologist Yigael Yadin mounted an archaeologic exploration of what would ultimately be tagged the Cave of Letters. The cave held numerous human skeletons, covered by various textiles and a large mat. Complete sets of clothing were also found with them. Numerous other items of common use were discovered:
- several iron “house keys”,
- polished mirrors,
- glass and wooden bowls,
- cooking pots,
- a pair of women’s sandals,
- a jewelry box,
- a fowling net, and more
The variety of items indicated that the cave had been occupied for an extensive period of time during the final Jewish revolt (the Bar-Kochba Revolt) against their Roman occupiers. Letters between leaders of the revolt were found, filling in details of that episode.
A Legal Trove
A particular item of interest was a collection of legal documents, secured in a leather satchel and found hidden below a loose stone in the cave’s floor. The 35 documents apparently belonged to a young Judaean woman named Babatha, who had live in Mahoza, Nabataea. The cache of documents is today referred to as “Babatha’s archive.” The scrolls, hand-written in Greek, Aramaic, and Nabataean, detailed her numerous legal actions for:
- custody of her son,
- child support payments owed to her,
- marriage contracts,
- financial loans she made to her second husband,
- various properties relinquished to her,
- and other legal documents
One document, not specifically found with the cache but most likely belonging to it at one time, specifically caught my eye. Usually referred to as “P. Starcky,” (or “papyrus-Starcky,” named for the scroll’s first scholarly publisher), the scroll concerns the ownership of a date-palm grove near the Nabataean shore of the Dead Sea. The scroll is hand-written in the Nabataean cursive script and details the legal cancellation of a previous “writ of seizure” enacted against the property. This document is part of the chain of ownership of a palm grove ultimately owned by Babatha.
Various pieces of the scroll have come forth at different times, and finally were recognized as parts of a single document. Dr. Philip Esler, an expert in archival ethnography and a former practising lawyer, has published a fascinating scholarly article on the document: “Babatha’s Final Days.” The study gives a detailed account of the likely personal significance of this document to the woman Babatha.
Replicating a 2000-year old Document
After weeks of investigation, I finally located another scholarly document containing multiple images of all the fragments of the document, put in their proper order. I cleaned up the images such that only the cursive characters remained, and then digitally organized the pieces so I could print them on quality paper. I used a paper prevously prepared with full-color images of blank, ancient manuscript folios.
After printing, I combined the document portions so they appeared to be one seamless scroll. The scroll edges were too perfectly straight, so as a final touch, I briefly burned the edges of the rolled scroll so that in its unrolled state its edges possessed a randomly-ragged, aged appearance.
I believe my reproduction is the world’s first attempt at replicating an ancient scroll written in Nabataean cursive script.
I added the scroll to the Lost City of Petra historical artifacts giveaway, in celebration of my novel The Stone Cutter.