[Newsbot]

Title: Dead Sea Scrolls stir storm at ROM
Category: lifestyle
Posted By: kitty
Date: 2009-04-09 04:36:27
Canadian

[stokes]

For important artifacts such as this no nation should be allowed to claim "ownership".

[SigPig]

If they are so concerned with having museum artifacts being obtained illegally they should be petitioning the British museeum. That's the largest colection of stolen goods in the world.

[Wada]

Might as well burn the damn things. What's written in them hasn't taught anyone a damn thing, especially how to be good neighbors.

[N_Fiddledog]

I need a history lesson. Here's what I'm seeing.

There are these ancient scrolls connected to the Jewish people and their religion. The land where the writers lived was taken over by a muslim state. That land was later taken over by a Jewish state. The Jews grabbed their scrolls. Later they gave the land up to a different set of Muslims. Now these Muslims want the Jewish texts back.

What did I miss?

Also these scrolls have been shown elsewhere, but there's a problem if they're shown in Canada. Why is that? Could it be they think there's a political climate here they think they can exploit to make a propaganda point? I mean do Muslims actually want Jewish texts, or is it more about scoring a political point?

Does it matter that the region making the complaint is run by an organization Wikipedia tells me Canada recognizes as a terrorist organization?

[DerbyX]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

What did I miss?

The facts.

$1:

Written mostly on parchment and partly on papyrus, the scrolls number about 900 manuscripts in all and mouldered undisturbed for roughly 20 centuries until their accidental discovery in 1947 by a young Bedouin Arab.

The timing of the find all but coincided with the establishment of Israel as an independent state and struck a deeply resonant chord among Jews, for the scrolls themselves, as well as their content and their origins, seemed to confirm an ancient Jewish bond with the Holy Land, reaching back to the destruction of the second Jewish temple in 70 AD – and beyond.

"The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls represents a turning point in the study of the history of the Jewish people in ancient times," explains a passage of text on the website of the Israel Museum, which nowadays provides a permanent home for the scrolls, "for never before has such a literary treasure of such magnitude come to light."

The caves containing the scrolls were located near Qumran, in what is now the Palestinian West Bank.

Beginning in 1947, and for nearly a decade, experts from the Rockefeller Museum in East Jerusalem, the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, and the École biblique et archéologique française excavated the caves and salvaged the scrolls, only a few of which were found whole. The rest were scattered into thousands of fragments.

Written mainly in Hebrew, and partly in Aramaic and Greek, the scrolls include about 200 copies of portions of the Jewish Bible.

At first, the scrolls were housed in the Rockefeller Museum in East Jerusalem, which was under Jordanian control at the time.

After the 1967 Six Day War, however, Israel unilaterally absorbed the eastern sections of the city, an act most Western nations – including Canada – regard as illegal under international law. The Israelis removed the scrolls from East Jerusalem and took them to the western city, where they remain.

According to Shor at the Israel Antiquities Authority, portions of the scrolls frequently have been put on display in other countries – including the United States, Britain, Switzerland, Germany, and Australia – over the past 10 years or so.

Plundered art treasure should go back to their rightful owners, a precedent well established.

[Pseudonym]

It's not art.

[martin14]

yep, as soon as there is a peace deal, there might actually be a case
for returning them, something to argue.

with peace.

until then, to the victors goes the spoils.

[DerbyX]

Pseudonym Pseudonym:

It's not art.

Semantics. Its historic treasure not unlike any number of Egyptian artifacts. You know what I meant.

[DerbyX]

martin14 martin14:

yep, as soon as there is a peace deal, there might actually be a case
for returning them, something to argue.

with peace.

until then, to the victors goes the spoils.

You make a very good argument for the entire muslims community to band together and do just that.

[martin14]

they are welcome to try.

and get their ass kicked for the i dont know manyth time



peace, then you can haggle about who owns what.

[DerbyX]

Good. Then we'll just wait for WW3 in order to establish a proper distinction of ownership for everything.

[martin14]

go right ahead, i have other things to do, thanks

[DerbyX]

I bet you do and its comforting to know that if I want something from my neighbour I should just take it because to the victor go the spoils.

I don't know why Canada bothers quoting international law with regards to the Russkies up north or with trade to the US. If we have something they want then its theirs for the taking right?

[N_Fiddledog]

Thanks Derby. So basically what you're saying is I was right. It was a Jewish text, originally written in a land where the writers originally made their home.

One thing I still don't understand though. Why is Hamas making claims of ownership? Technically shouldn't it be Jordan if they held control of the Jewish document before Israel annexed East Jerusalem? Israel still holds control of all Jerusalem right?

Canada considers the annexation illegal according to your quote, but according to Wikipedia Canada also considers Hamas a terrorist organization. Even if Canada doesn't recognize Israel's ownership of East Jerusalem, why are we being asked to immediately assume Canada does recognize a Hamas ownership of East Jerusalem? They're the guys claiming they own the Jewish scrolls, right?

Quite a mess. Basically though there is no international agreement specifically giving ownership of the scrolls to anybody. Is that correct? If not, do you have a link to the specific information.

By specific I mean some country, or organization has appeared before some internationally recognized body specifically laying claim to the scrolls, and has been granted ownership. If that doesn't exist, what it looks like is a Muslim organization Canada recognizes as terrorist is whining about how they want to own some Jewish texts.

The whining is being directed towards the Ontario liberal arts community where they know they'll find a sympathetic ear.