Selling the scrolls
The shepherd throught the papers were worthless to him
So,in 1948,he sold the pieces of paper to an antiquities dealer
In 1949,the dealer sold them to Hebrew University
They were examined by a few academic scholars
By 1952,the scholars realized that these ancient writings were related to the bible
Studying the Scrolls
The scholars explored the 11 caves with scrolls and found over 15000 pieces of manuscript (or scrolls)
Sometimes they were no bigger than a postage stamp.
It was determined that they belonged to 800 documents.
It was a great challenge to put together all these tiny scroll pieces in to the correct original document.
It was like a giant jigsaw puzzle.
The Dead Sea Scrolls were a combination of hymns and poems
Some of the scrolls contained writings of king David and Joshua,who lived over 3000 year ago
Finally,in 1991,the scrolls were made available to the public and are now displayed in the israel Museum in Jerusalem.
Since 2008, scholars have been digitally photographing the scrolls so that anyone can view the Dead Sea Scrolls online