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A five-year international research project plans to use AI to help track where the Dead Sea Scrolls were originally produced and copied.

Researchers expect to use multiple scientific methods to reconstruct the geographical and cultural context that produced the scrolls.

One distinct scroll—the copper scroll treasure map—won’t be included, maintaining its mysterious status within one of the most storied archaeological collections.

Researchers have a fresh plan to definitively date the famous Dead Sea Scrolls . But even if it goes swimmingly over the next five years, there’s one scroll that will remain a mystery. One of the most exceptional Dead Sea Scrolls will remain impervious to the most modern methods of analysis, since the text is written on copper, rather than parchment or papyrus.

Oh... and it’s also the only scroll that’s a treasure map .

The European Research Council awarded €2.5 million to Mladen Popovic (a professor from the University of Groningen) for the Tracing Scribes and Scrolls project, which will examine 250 samples from the collection of scrolls. In conjunction with the Israel Antiquities Authority, a group of laboratories and researchers across Europe will combine chemical analysis, artificial intelligence , paleography, and codicology to reconstruct the geographical and cultural contexts of the original creation of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The collection—originally discovered between 1947 and 1956—was found spread across in 11 caves near the site of Khirbet Qumran on the shores of the Dead Sea by three Bedouin shepherds. The scrolls feature the earliest known manuscripts of many books of the Hebrew Bible, along with an expansive collection of Jewish literary works. The total collection now features thousands of pieces. But even after decades of intense scholarly research, there’s no definitive answer as to where the scrolls were manufactured, prepared, or copied.

“The research will create an unprecedented database on the chemical composition of samples from the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Ilit Cohen-Ofri, from the Israel Antiquities Authority, said in a statement . “In recent years we have come to recognize the wealth of information that can be recovered from the materials themselves—parchment, papyrus , and ink—revealing hidden insights preserved within thousands of manuscript fragments that have survived for more than two millennia.”

Across the thousands of artifacts , one stands apart. In 1952, archaeologists discovered a copper scroll in one of the caves—the only example not on parchment or papyrus. Because it was wound tightly, researchers spent five years figuring out how to open the brittle copper (they eventually sliced the scroll into small pieces). Once the copper scroll was cut apart, experts confirmed a theory that it wasn’t a piece of the Bible. It was a treasure map.

The first words were clear: “In the fortress which is in the Vale of Achor, forty cubits under the steps entering to the east: a money chest and it [sic] contents, of a weight of seventeen talents.”

The treasure described in the scroll includes gold, silver, coins, and vessels. But there’s plenty of mystery. “The text is in Hebrew, which is certainly a known language, but most ancient Hebrew texts that we have are religious in nature, and the copper scroll is anything but religious,” according to a statement released by the University of Southern California’s (USC) Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences. “Most of its vocabulary is simply not found in the Bible or anything else we have from ancient times.”

The technical wording is tricky to decipher, and experts aren’t certain where the geographical locations mentioned are—if they even still exist. Scholars don’t know where the treasure came from or who it belonged to, leading some to believe it was a temple treasure hidden before the site’s destruction in 70 C.E. Maybe it was even tied to a second temple. Others think the treasure is connected to a sect living at Qumran. “Who the treasure belonged to, and what happened to it, we may never know,” the USC scholars wrote.

But a temple treasure remains the leading theory. “The treasure is vast, far beyond what we could imagine would be the property of an individual or even a group, unless they were the rulers of a nation,” Joan Taylor, from King’s College London, wrote in 2019 . “If we look at the copper scroll closely in terms of its contents, this treasure seems to come from a temple .” It appears that the treasure was tucked away in either 61 or 64 different locations.

The use of copper was likely deliberate. “Burying a massive treasure, recording the burial locations on a virtually indestructible scroll, and then hiding that scroll show that someone anticipated that the treasure and treasure map would be seized,” the society wrote. “Someone went to great lengths to try to prevent that from happening.”

No matter the original intention, the treasure map has yet to bear fruit. Maybe the map was written before the treasure was buried. Maybe there’s no treasure at all. Or... just maybe... there’s still a treasure buried throughout 60-plus locations waiting to be found.

Tim Newcomb is a journalist based in the Pacific Northwest. He covers stadiums, sneakers, gear, infrastructure, and more for a variety of publications, including Popular Mechanics. His favorite interviews have included sit-downs with Roger Federer in Switzerland, Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles, and Tinker Hatfield in Portland.

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