After more than a year of restoration efforts, scholars at Haifa University succeeded in decoding one of only two remaining Dead Sea scrolls yet to be deciphered.
The more than 60 tiny fragments of parchment that make up the scroll, bearing encrypted Hebrew writing, had previously been thought to come from a variety of different scrolls, a Haifa University spokesman said Sunday.
But Dr. Eshbal Ratson and Professor Jonathan Ben-Dov of the Department of Bible Studies at Haifa University discovered that they fit together to make one readable document.
The scroll was found to reference a 364-day calendar used by a Jewish sect that lived in the Judean Desert during the Second Temple period.
It also refers to annual wine and olive harvest festivals that are no longer observed in Judaism.
The sections of the original parchment were found in a cave near Qumran, in the Dead Sea region.
Researchers explained that it was common practice in many places, outside of Israel as well, for the leader to write in secret code. It was seen as a status symbol, experts say.
The author of the scroll apparently left out days marking the changing of seasons, as this oversight appears to be corrected in the margins of the parchment. According researchers, the revelation indicates the previously enigmatic term for these days was "tekufa," which, in modern Hebrew means "period."
