Leather tests prove astonishing find at Bologna University
29/05/2013
Mauro Perani, professor of Hebrew at the university, was carrying out a cataloguing exercise on 30 or so scrolls and parchments with Hebrew text in the library when he discovered one called simply Scroll 2. A previous catalogue, from 1889, had dismissed it as being of little importance, dating probably from the prevoius century.
However, from the style of the letters and the way the text is presented, Professor Perani knew immediately that Scroll 2 was much older.
Tests on the sheepskin at the universities of Salento in Italy and Illinois in the US proved his assessment to be correct and dated the parchment scroll between 1155 and 1225, making it the oldest surviving copy of the Torah in the world.
“This is an object of immense value,” the university said in a statement, “and is clearly going to be of great importance to scholars.”
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