JERUSALEM, March 15 (Xinhua) -- Two Dead Sea Scrolls will appear in public for the first time, as part of the new Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) exhibition, the Israeli authority said Thursday.
The exhibition, which will open Friday at the Denver Museum of Science and Nature in Colorado, the United States, features some 600 artifacts from the biblical to Bar Kokhba periods.
A stone from the Western Wall weighing 3 tons and other 18 Dead Sea Scrolls will also be presented in the exhibition, which will be open for six months.
Among the two scrolls to make first public appearance, the first one, designated 4Q274 Tohorot (Purities) A, was written in Hebrew at the end of the first century B.C. and deals with matters of purity and impurity according to the Bible, said the IAA.
The second one, 4Q418, Musar leMevin (Instruction to the One Who Understands), part of a wisdom composition from the end of the first century B.C., is similar in character to the biblical book of Proverbs, although it contains apocalyptic messages.
The first 10 scrolls on display, under strictly monitored conditions, will be sent back to Israel in three months, to be replaced by 10 others, said the IAA.
After the exhibition, the 20 scrolls will be kept for at least five years in the IAA's scroll climate-controlled vault, in conditions simulating those of the Judean Desert caves in which they were found, according to the authority.
These delicate fragments of parchment and papyrus, including the most ancient copies of the Bible, were preserved for 2,000 years due to the dark and dry conditions in the caves.
