Shrine of the Book

Shrine of the Book is where the Dead Sea Scrolls are kept. The distinctive pot lid-shaped roof is meant to symbolise the pots in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were kept. The scrolls, totalling 800 in all, were found in 1947 and date back to the time of the Bar Kochba Revolt (AD 132-35). They deal with both secular and religious issues and were thought to have been written by an ascetic group of Jews called the Essenes, who inhabited the area for about 300 years.

The most important of the Dead Sea Scrolls is the Great Isaiah Scroll, the largest and best preserved. It is the only biblical scroll that has survived in its entirety, and takes centre place in the room. The 54 columns of the scroll contain all 66 chapters of Isaiah without an apparent division between what modern scholars regard as First and Second Isaiah. It predates the previously oldest biblical document ever found by about 1000 years.

Close to the Shrine of the Book is a huge 1:50 scale model of Jerusalem as it was in AD 66, at the end of the Second Temple era. The model was moved here from the Holy Land hotel in 2006. A paved promenade leads from the Shrine of the Book to an Art Garden holding sculptures by Moore, Rodin and Picasso.