Books found in Jordanian cave could be more significant than the Dead Sea Scrolls
- From: news.com.au
- March 31, 2011
- Stash of 70 little books found in a cave
- May be as significant as Dead Sea Scrolls
- Dispute over rightful owner, and if they're real
IT'S a plot thicker than the Da Vinci Code.
A mini library of 70 tiny books found stashed in a cave could rewrite Christian history and be a bigger deal than the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Or could it be an elaborate hoax?
The credit-card-sized "books", each made with just a handful of lead pages and bound with rings, were discovered in a cave in Jordan after floods, the BBC reports.
Reports say metallurgical tests suggest they could have been around since the first century AD and a carbon dating test on piece of leather found with them suggested it was 2000 years old.
Many are believed to be sealed, prompting speculation they are a lost collection of codices mentioned in the Bible's Book Of Revelation.
The director of the Jordan's Department of Antiquities, Ziad al-Saad, told the BBC the books might have been made in the few decades after Jesus' crucifixion.
"They will really match, and perhaps be more significant than, the Dead Sea Scrolls," he said.
Reportedly discovered between 2005 and 2007, they have now become the subject of a dispute between authorities, archaeological experts and a Israeli Bedouin farmer who has reportedly hidden them, claiming them as family heirlooms.
Farmer Hassan Saeda says they were found by his great-grandfather, and have been in his family for 100 years, The Telegraph reports.
But the Jordanian government says they were smuggled out of Jordan in recent years and it wants them back.
Meanwhile, Israeli archaeological sources have reportedly dismissed them as forgeries.
And British archaeologists wanting to save the books have reported receiving death threats.
Leading the British team is scholar David Elkington, who has seen and photographed the books, and told the Daily Mail they were "the major discovery of Christian history".
"It is a breathtaking thought that we have held these objects that might have been held by the early saints of the Church."
See pictures of the books at the BBC.