of the oldest pine trees in the country. According to Arab legend, on the site of this pine tree, Ezra the Scribe sat and wrote the Torah for Israel. The stump may still be seen behind the museum. Collections The museum's first curator was John H. Iliffe, who arranged the artifacts in chronological order, from two million years ago to 1700 AD. Among the museum's prized possessions are 8th-century wooden panels from the Jami Al-Aqsa and 12th-century (Crusader-period) marble lintels from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Most of the collection consists of finds from the 1920s and 1930s. On display are artifacts unearthed in Jerusalem, Megiddo, Ashkelon, Lachish, Sebastia, and Jericho. One of the Lachish letters is on permanent display at the museum, as are the statuary and stucco decorations from the Umayyad Hisham's Palace. Upon their discovery at Qumran between 1947 and 1956, the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls were housed in the Rockefeller Museum. In 1967, following the Israeli capture of East Jerusalem, Israel relocated the scrolls to the Shrine of the Book, a specially designed building on the grounds of the Israel Museum, in West Jerusalem, with the ownership of these scrolls having been heavily contested ever since. Part of the scrolls, including the Copper Scroll, had been taken to the Jordan Museum in Amman. Currently, the Rockefeller Museum holds thousands of artifacts ranging from prehistoric times to the Ottoman period, including a 9,000-year-old statue from Jericho (one of the oldest representations of a human figure ever found), as well as gold jewelry from the Bronze Age. Exhibitions The museum regularly hosts special exhibitions, such as the 2019/2021 exhibition of Armenian ceramics in Jerusalem. References Further reading Memoirs, David Rockefeller, New York: Random House, 2002. External links Rockefeller Archaeological Museum Homepage Museums established in 1938 1938 establishments in Mandatory Palestine Institutions founded by the Rockefeller family Israel Museum Museums in Jerusalem Museums of Ancient Near East in Asia Archaeological museums East Jerusalem