DEAD SEA SCROLLS — TREVER 435 



It is true that the study of Hebrew and Aramaic paleogi-aphy has 

 not developed to the point where we can assign such manuscripts with 

 confidence witliin narrow limits in early periods of history on the 

 basis of the form of the writing alone, but it certainly is an important 

 tool to set beside the other means of dating documents. Certainly 

 it has had an important bearing on the Dead Sea Scrolls, having led 

 those who examined the scrolls in the first place to their initial con- 

 clusion—a conclusion which has not yet been seriously challenged— 

 that they are about 2,000 years old.^^ It has also helped narrow down 

 some of the very wide divergencies of dating derived from the study 

 of the internal evidence only. 



The writer is extremely grateful to the American Philosophical 

 Society, the American Schools of Oriental Research, and the National 

 Council of Churches for making a contribution to this research, and he 

 hopes to publish the final results soon. 



MThe writer made a preliminary attempt to date the Dead Sea Scrolls by means of 

 paleography in his A paleographic study of the Jerusalem Scrolls, Bull. Amer. Schools 

 Orient. Res., vol. 113. pp. 6-23, February 1949. 



Reprints of the various articles in this Report may be obtained, as long as 

 the supply lasts, on request to the Editorial and Publications Division, 

 Smithsonian Institution, Washington 25, D. C. 



