Israel’s antiquities office announced Wednesday that it has acquired a recently discovered antique papyrus with a Hebrew inscription that dates to about 2,700 years ago and was long in the property of a citizen of Montana.
The papyrus fragment, which is no bigger than a postage stamp and has four lines of angular writing, is one of very few from the area in the Late Iron Age, according to experts.
Radiocarbon dating, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority, was used to confirm its age and match the age of the text’s writing style.
The Judean Desert Scrolls Unit Director Joe Uziel stated that he is ‘quite positive’ that the scroll is not a recent counterfeit due to the matching radiocarbon date and paleographic technique.
The papyrus, which has the Biblical name Ishmael, was probably looted from a cave in the Judean Desert earlier this century, according to him.
Its origins and route from the desert to Montana sixty years ago, then to Jerusalem, are still unknown.
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