In the halls of Harvard's Fogg Art Museum last week, there was an expectant hush. After nine months of experimenting with bits of ancient leather, Fogg's Rutherford J. Gettens, chief of technical research, had decided to try a ticklish job: the unrolling of a brown and brittle scroll, dry with the dust of 2,000 years.
The scroll, which was brought to the U.S. by the Metropolitan of Jerusalem, was discovered in 1947 with seven others in a cave near the Dead Sea. Three of the others, which were in excellent condition and easily opened, contain a complete text of the book of...
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