Alost fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls has been found in an unlikely place — Montana. For almost 60 years, it hung in the home of an American woman who’d acquired the treasure during a trip to Israel.
According to the Daily Mail, Ben-Gurion University Professor Shmuel Ahituv became aware of the existence of the rare fragment while working to complete the book of her late colleague, Ada Yardeni, who studied ancient Hebrew script. The Times of Israel reports that Ahituv then alerted Eitan Klein, the head of the Israel Antiquities Authority’s Theft Prevention Unit.
Through some old-fashioned detective work, Klein was able to track down the son of the fragment’s original owner, who wishes to remain anonymous. According to the Times of Israel, he told Klein that his mother had picked up the fragment during a visit to Israel in 1965. Part of a Christian mission, she worked with a number of people associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls and somehow acquired a fragment that she brought home and framed.
