A familiar story told often this time of year involves shepherds in the holy land watching over their flocks by night. That was a bit more than 2,000 years ago but such shepherding continues to this day. In 1945, a similar group of shepherds guarded their flock near the Dead Sea in the West Bank.
One of those latter-day shepherds got bored and tossed a rock into an elevated cave opening. He heard something break. The group climbed up to investigate. The rock had broken an old clay vessel. Inside were ancient scrolls wrapped in leather. Those scrolls were determined to be the earliest written version of the Hebrew bible scribed between 150 BC and 70 AD.
A Syrian Orthodox Archbishop bought four of the scrolls for $100 from a cobbler in Jerusalem. He tried to resell them but couldn’t find any buyers. In 1954, he even ran classified ads hawking them in the Wall Street Journal under “Miscellaneous For Sale.” He eventually sold them for $250,000 to the newly formed State of Israel....
Over the following years, native Bedouins and archaeologists uncovered multiple thousands more scroll pieces from caves. The value of even a few fragments is now considered priceless.
Fast-forward to times when others put pen to paper creating noted documents. It’s said Abe Lincoln wrote his immortal Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope. That’s in dispute but, if true, just imagine the value of that piece of scrap paper.
Four score and seven years prior to that Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence. It is impossible to put a price tag on the one version originally signed by all the colonial delegates.
Any of the countless letters George Washington wrote to wife Martha during the Revolutionary War would also have immeasurable value. The thing is, upon George’s death, Martha burned all the letters between them to maintain their privacy. Just two letters between George and his wife were found in a desk given by Martha to one of her granddaughters.
No two ways about it, we will pay dearly for originally penned items of significance. Last year, a single page of notes, which Beatle Paul McCartney had jotted down to remind him of the lyrics to the hit song Hey Jude, went up for auction. Paul had handwritten some words to the song for the 1968 recording session. In 2020, that one page of scant notes in his pen was estimated to sell for around $100,000. Nope. When all was said and done his jottings was hammered down for $910,000 – over nine times the original estimate. In comparison, that was less than half the two-million dollars paid in 2014 for Bob Dylan’s original lyrics for his song Like A Rolling Stone.
Perhaps as a result of such astronomical prices, there have been new sales featuring handwritten lyrics of popular songs with the proceeds going to charity. It sounds like a great idea save for one thing. Many times, the lyrics are anything but original. Instead, they appear to have been penned by someone and then signed by the singer, songwriter or both. Some even contain drawings/doodles. None have the appearance of being the original jottings of the artist when the song was conceived.
Amusing as these items may be, they don’t hold a candle to, or sell for a fraction of, lyrics originally scribbled on scrap paper or on the back of an envelope when musical creativity was flowing. I wager their value will be far less in the future than what is being paid today. Just a word to the wise.
Speaking of future value, as valuable as the Dead Sea Scrolls may be now, they are reported to contain far more than just the intrinsic worth of the paper on which they are written.
One of the manuscripts etched on what is called the “Copper Scroll” is something of ancient treasure map. Hebrew and Greek lettering offers information about dozens of hidden gold and silver treasure troves throughout Israel. The ancient and cryptic clues suggest 64 hiding places containing stashed riches of untold value and there’s little doubt the treasures exist. To date, none has been recovered.
It all adds a new dimension to what’s possible for 2022. Maybe someone should write a song about it.
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