Search results for "Dead Sea"

More Dubious Dead Sea Scrolls

2021

Abstract In the course of the last eighteen years more than 75 new “Dead Sea Scrolls” fragments have surfaced on the antiquities market. These are commonly referred to as post-2002 Dead Sea Scrolls-like fragments. A growing number of scholars regard a substantial part of them as forgeries. In this article, we will discuss four more dubious fragments, but this time from the 20th Century—or at least from pre-2002. Two of the fragments have been known since the late nineties and are published in the DJD series. One was published in Revue de Qumran (2003), and one in Gleanings from the Caves (2016). All four are today accepted as part of the Dead Sea Scrolls dataset even though they are unprove…

Fake Fragments, Flexible Provenances: Eight Aramaic “Dead Sea Scrolls” from the 21st Century

2019

Garra tibanica ghorensis subsp.nov. (Pisces: Cyprinidae), an African element in the cyprinid fauna of the Levant

1982

Garra tibanica ghorensis subsp. nov. is described from the southern Dead Sea Valley. In the Levant it represents the only cyprinid fish with African affinities known to date. It is suggested that G. t. ghorensis reached the area of its present distribution from the south and is not to be regarded as a relict of an earlier migration of the species to Africa via the Levant.

Trace element fractionation through halite crystallisation: Geochemical mechanisms and environmental implications

2019

Halite is an important mineral for industry, agriculture and food production. It crystallises after water evaporation, while the progressive growth of dissolved metal ions in brines is occurring. Then, halite exploitation may provide the delivery of metal ions in the environment and the mechanism of this trace element accumulation should be studied. In this work we investigate the distribution of lanthanides and Y (hereafter named Rare Earth Elements, REE), Zr and Hf between crystallising halite and brines in the Dead Sea as geochemical tools for recognising the mechanism of metal ion removal from brines and accumulation in halite. Halite forms cubic crystals where octahedral planes sometim…

Geochemical characterisation of gases along the dead sea rift: Evidences of mantle-co2 degassing

2016

International audience; The Dead Sea Transform (DST) fault system, where a lateral displacement between the African and Arabian plates occurs, is characterised by anomalous heat flux in the Israeli area close to the border with Syria and Jordan. The concentration of He and CO2, and isotopic composition of He and total dissolved inorganic carbon were studied in cold and thermal waters collected along the DST, in order to investigate the source of volatiles and their relationship with the tectonic framework of the DST. The waters with higher temperature (up to 57.2 °C) are characterised by higher amounts of CO2 and helium (up to 55.72 and 1.91 * 10-2 cc l-1, respectively). Helium isotopic dat…

Nine Dubious “Dead Sea Scrolls” Fragments from the Twenty-First Century

2017

Abstract In 2002 new “Dead Sea Scrolls” fragments began to appear on the antiquities market, most of them through the Kando family. In this article we will present evidence that nine of these Dead Sea Scrolls-like fragments are modern forgeries.

Rare earths release from dissolving atmospheric dust and their accumulation into crystallising halite. The dead-sea example

2023

: The industrial extraction of Y and lanthanides (hereafter defined as Rare Earth Elements, REE) often requires the achievement of leaching procedures removing these metals from primary rocks and their transfer in aqueous leachates or incorporated in newly forming soluble solids. These procedures are the most dangerous to the environment in relation to the composition of leachates. Hence, the recognition of natural settings where these processes currently occur, represents a worthy challenge for learning how to carry out similar industrial procedures under natural and more eco-friendly conditions. Accordingly, the REE distribution was studied in the brine of Dead Sea, a terminal evaporating…

The Acheulian Site of Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov

2011

Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov (GBY) is located in the southern Hula Valley, which, in turn, is located in the northernmost segment of the Dead Sea Rift, part of the Great African Rift System. This region is an integral part of the “Levantine Corridor,” a land bridge connecting Africa and Europe, through which the diffusion and biotic exchange of many organisms took place in prehistoric times. The Hula Valley has preserved data of a phenomenon of great importance in human history: archaeological evidence recording hominin diffusion/migration out of Africa and into Eurasia. The unique sedimentological and hydrological conditions prevailing in the Hula, along with extensive and intensive tectonic activ…

Tales of saviours and iconoclasts. On the provenance of "the Dead Sea Scrolls of Buddhism"

2021

Academic research on newly discovered ancient Buddhist manuscripts is largely based on objects that come from the antiquities market and to a much lesser degree on objects coming from documented and controlled archaeological excavations. Despite their being unprovenanced, collectors and scholars often present such objects with narratives mimicking provenance. The use of the label "Dead Sea Scrolls" attached to archaeological material without connections to Judaism or early Christianity is a prevalent example of this scholarly praxis. In this article, we deconstruct provenance narratives associated with the undocumented Buddhist manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection and discuss their implica…

Predetermined for Predestination? On the Assumed Notion of Predestination in the Dead Sea Scrolls

2019

The present article argues that the concept of predestination does not on the whole lend itself to Qumran studies. Unlike the writings of Augustine and Calvin, the scrolls contain nothing like a do...