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Ten Commandments take ROM centre stage
By Unknown
October 2, 2009
TORONTO - The Ten Commandments will take the spotlight at the Royal Ontario Museum this month.
Visitors to the ROM Oct. 10-18 will be able to see the world’s oldest and best preserved parchment scroll of the Ten Commandments in a display separate from the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition. The display will only be open a total of 80 hours over the eight days.
“I doubt these will come to Canada again,” said Dan Rahimi, a ROM curator. “The scrolls are very sensitive to light and that’s why we have it for such a very short time.”
Like the rest of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are being displayed on rotation every few months — eight at a time — the age of the scrolls makes them prone to deterioration the longer they are open to the public eye.
The Ten Commandments, the largest of the Hebrew scrolls found, is a must-see document during a ROM visit, Rahimi added.
Visitors to the ROM Oct. 10-18 will be able to see the world’s oldest and best preserved parchment scroll of the Ten Commandments in a display separate from the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition. The display will only be open a total of 80 hours over the eight days.
“I doubt these will come to Canada again,” said Dan Rahimi, a ROM curator. “The scrolls are very sensitive to light and that’s why we have it for such a very short time.”
Like the rest of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are being displayed on rotation every few months — eight at a time — the age of the scrolls makes them prone to deterioration the longer they are open to the public eye.
The Ten Commandments, the largest of the Hebrew scrolls found, is a must-see document during a ROM visit, Rahimi added.
“It’s just such a phenomenally important document to Western history and culture — legal systems have been based on the Ten Commandments — so that’s why I think it’s really in a class by itself in terms of its cultural significance to us in the West in particular.”
This is partly why visitors will find the Ten Commandments scroll in a room of its own on the third floor of the ROM, accessible with a regular museum admission pass. The Dead Sea Scrolls have a separate extensive exhibit that features at least four scrolls of Old Testament texts and four other kinds of texts such as commentary or everyday documents that were found in the caves along the Dead Sea. The new rotation will reveal eight different scrolls beginning Oct. 10.
“In the new rotation we have a part of the book of Psalms; Psalm 124, the Song of Ascents, is a part of the Catholic daily liturgy and of the Anglican and Jewish liturgies, so it’s a fabulous document that people would recognize,” Rahimi said.
The first rotation of the scrolls drew more than 200,000 visitors.
Rahimi said visitors should know that the scrolls aren’t the only focus of the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit. There are about 300 artifacts from the second temple period, including objects from the temple enclosure, which you go through before seeing the scrolls.
“What we do is provide a context for understanding when the scrolls were written and we talk about what was happening in Judea at the time,” he said.
A stone parapet on display, for example, would have sat above the gate that Jesus entered through.
This is partly why visitors will find the Ten Commandments scroll in a room of its own on the third floor of the ROM, accessible with a regular museum admission pass. The Dead Sea Scrolls have a separate extensive exhibit that features at least four scrolls of Old Testament texts and four other kinds of texts such as commentary or everyday documents that were found in the caves along the Dead Sea. The new rotation will reveal eight different scrolls beginning Oct. 10.
“In the new rotation we have a part of the book of Psalms; Psalm 124, the Song of Ascents, is a part of the Catholic daily liturgy and of the Anglican and Jewish liturgies, so it’s a fabulous document that people would recognize,” Rahimi said.
The first rotation of the scrolls drew more than 200,000 visitors.
Rahimi said visitors should know that the scrolls aren’t the only focus of the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit. There are about 300 artifacts from the second temple period, including objects from the temple enclosure, which you go through before seeing the scrolls.
“What we do is provide a context for understanding when the scrolls were written and we talk about what was happening in Judea at the time,” he said.
A stone parapet on display, for example, would have sat above the gate that Jesus entered through.