Ketef Hinnom

KH1 and KH2 scrolls

The two scrolls on display
Material	Silver
Writing	Paleo-Hebrew characters
Created	circa 650 - 587 BCE (pre-exile)
Discovered	1979
Present location	Israel Museum

Ketef Hinnom (Hebrew: כָּתֵף הִינוֹם‎ katef hinom, "shoulder of Hinnom") is an archaeological site southwest of the Old City of Jerusalem, adjacent to St. Andrew's Church, now on the grounds of the Menachem Begin Heritage Center. It is located where the Valley of Rephaim and the Valley of Hinnom meet, on the old road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem.

The site consists of a series of rock-hewn burial chambers based on natural caverns. In 1979, two tiny silver scrolls, inscribed with portions of the well-known prophylactic Priestly Blessing from the Book of Numbers and apparently once used as amulets, were found in one of the burial chambers. The delicate process of unrolling the scrolls while developing a method that would prevent them from disintegrating took three years. They contain what may be the oldest surviving texts from the Hebrew Bible, dating from around the late 7th to early 6th century BCE, and are now preserved at the Israel Museum.

The scrolls were found in 1979 in Chamber 25 of Cave 24 at Ketef Hinnom, during excavations conducted by a team under the supervision of Gabriel Barkay, who was then professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University. The site appeared to be archaeologically sterile (the tomb had last been used for storing rifles during the Ottoman period), but a chance discovery by a 13-year-old "assistant" revealed that a partial collapse of the ceiling long ago had preserved the contents of Chamber 25.