Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret Knowledge, and Ancient Mysteries by Brian Haughton (beginner reading books for adults txt) 📕

the University of Chicago, believes that the scrolls represent such a wide range of ideas that, rather than being the product of one community, they likely represent the writings of various Jewish sects and communities of ancient Israel.

The most unusual and mysterious of the ancient scrolls from the Dead Sea is without doubt the Copper Scroll.

This particular scroll was found in 1952 in Cave 3 at Qumran, and, as its name suggests, is made from copper. The scroll is written in a different form of Hebrew than the other Qumran manuscripts, and probably dates to the mid-first century A.D. Unlike the rest of the scrolls, the Copper Scroll is not a literary work, but a list of 64 underground hiding places throughout Israel. These hiding places are described as containing vast caches of gold, silver, scrolls, ritual vessels, containers of incense, and weapons. In 1960 it was estimated that the total value of this hypothetical treasure would be over $ 1 million. Although many have searched for these riches, nothing has ever been discovered, convincing most scholars that the actual Hebrew text of the scroll is some kind of code. The presence of groups of two or three Greek letters appended to the end of seven of the entries tends to reinforce this viewpoint. Due to the specific nature of some of the items (including ritual vessels and incense), the riches described are believed by some researchers to be the famous lost treasure from the Temple at Jerusalem, hidden away for safekeeping before the destruction of the Temple by the Roman legions in A.D. 70. One intriguing aspect of the Copper Scroll is the last entry on its list of locations, labeled as "Item 64." It reads "in a pit adjoining on the north, in a hole opening northward, and buried at its mouth: a copy of this document, with an explanation and their measurements, and an inventory of each and every thing." Does this entry mean that there is another yet undiscovered copper scroll hidden somewhere, containing more substantial information?

Although all of the manuscripts discovered in Cave 1 appeared in print between 1950 and 1956, publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls has often been a slow process. Lack of access to the Scroll material has persuaded some researchers, such as Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh in their book The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception, that the Vatican was behind a plot to suppress the release of the manuscripts to the public out of fear of the dangerous material related to early Christianity that the scrolls contained. Such theories have been considerably weakened by the release of more scroll material in the late 1990s and early 2000s, in particular the publication of the entire collection of Biblical scrolls. With the publication of much of the material from the caves at Qumran, the importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls can now be better appreciated. Not only do the scrolls provide fascinating religious and historical information about a poorly documented period of history, but they also shed considerable light on the sources of both Judaism and early Christianity.

An interesting parallel with the Dead Sea Scrolls material has recently been provided by the newly translated Gospel of Judas, a text which gives completely new insights into the relationship of Jesus and the infamous disciple who betrayed him.

This early Christian leather-bound papyrus manuscript includes the only known text of the Gospel of Judas, and has been dated to around A.D. 300. The manuscript was found in the 1970s in a cavern near El Minya, Egypt, and circulated among antiquities dealers in Egypt and Europe for years before it found its way to the United States where, in 2000, it was purchased by Frieda NussbergerTchacos, a Zurich-based antiquities dealer. Ms. Nussberger-Tchacos eventually sold the manuscript to the Maecenas Foundation in Basel, Switzerland, for restoration and translation. In April 2006, at a news conference in Washington, D.C., the National Geographic Society announced the completion of the restoration and translation of the manuscript. As with the Dead Sea Scrolls, a significant amount of the original material from the El Minya texts is missing, though some of it is believed to be in circulation among antiquities dealers or in private hands. In this light, one can only wonder what other manuscript treasures the complete library of scrolls at Qumran once included, and if, in a secluded cave somewhere around the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, further scrolls lie buried in the sand, waiting to be discovered.

the Crystal Skull of Doom

The Crystal Skull of Doom reproduced from the July 1936 issue of Man, when the skull was the property of Sidney Burney.

The crystal skulls are enigmatic and controversial objects. Credited by some as ancient artifacts with remarkable magical and healing properties-but dismissed by others as relatively modern forgeries-there is no agreement about their origins. Some researchers have claimed that there are 13 crystal skulls located in various places around the world, only five of which have so far been located. The objects themselves are models of human skulls carved from clear quartz crystal, and the examples so far recovered vary in

size from a few inches to the size of a human head. Where the skulls originated or what they were used for is a mystery, but an origin with the preColumbian cultures of South America, such as the Aztecs and Maya, have been suggested. Without doubt the most fascinating and puzzling of these crystal skulls is the Mitchell-Hedges Skull, which possesses an eerie, alluring beauty, unequalled in other examples. The baffling story of the Skull of Doom, as it has become known, is almost as strange as the object itself.

The fearsome Skull of Doom is a lifesize rock which weighs around 11 pounds, 7 ounces, and is beautifully carved from a single, clear, quartz crystal. The skull features a fitted detachable jaw, which would allow for movement, as if the head was speaking. Apart from small flaws in the temples and cheekbone, it is