> Also, you say parchment; should it not be papyrus? Parchment doesn't get cracked. Sources I could find all say the Dead Sea Scroll are in parchment, not papy

> Also, you say parchment; should it not be papyrus? Parchment doesn't get cracked. Sources I could find all say the Dead Sea Scroll are in parchment, not papyrus, but as I said I'm not a scholar or an expert on this. It seems the problem with parchment is that it doesn't absorb ink, so that sometimes the mere rolling or unrolling can crack the ink out of the surface, even if the surface itself stays intact. Also, many fragments are torn apart, and in that case there should be no ink at the tear, whereas the forgeries were written all over, from side to side.