Showing Israel’s Treasures, Carefully

The Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, its concerns over safety heightened after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, is taking unprecedented measures to protect its coming exhibition of ancient artifacts from Israel, which include a religious treasure that has never left that country before.

After conferring with the FBI, local law enforcement and Israeli officials, the Santa Ana museum has ordered metal detectors and armed guards and asked for increased police presence. The “Holy Land” exhibition opens Saturday.

At stake is the protection of two of Israel’s most important links to its ancient history: the House of David inscription and two fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

“It’s shocking to me that the Israel Museum allowed it to go on loan,” said Bill Schniedewind, chairman of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA. “And it’s absolutely fabulous.”

Even before the terrorist attacks, museum officials had planned protective measures for the artifacts. As planned early on, an armed escort delivered the treasures last weekend from Los Angeles International Airport to the museum.

“What we are doing now is standard for federal buildings,” museum President Peter Keller said in a prepared statement. “And we are really upgrading our security, admittedly as a result of the Sept. 11 events.”

Museum officials said they anticipate record attendance during the show’s three-month run, when the House of David inscription--a stone fragment containing the first mention of King David outside the Hebrew Scriptures--can be viewed for the first time outside Israel.

Museum spokeswoman Susan M. Metcalf said that as a result of the terrorist attacks, officials decided to install metal detectors at the entrance and post an armed guard at the front door.

She said that before the attacks, museum officials had been talking to local police about beefing up patrols in the neighborhood during the exhibition.

Metcalf said other museums, such as the Smithsonian, have similar security measures already in place. She said Bowers officials have yet to decide whether to keep the security measures in place when the exhibition ends Jan. 9.

Officials with the Israeli Antiquities Authority, who traveled with the artifacts, said they debated whether to send replicas after the attacks, but decided against it.

“We’d prefer to send the replicas, but we promised the museum the items, and they promised us that the security arrangements were in place,” said Tatyana Bitler, a Dead Sea Scrolls conservator. “It’s very important that people can see these special artifacts.”

Archeologists discovered the House of David inscription, a basalt chunk of a demolished war monument dating to the 9th century BC, east of Galilee in 1993. Thirteen lines, written in Aramaic, contain the six-character phrase “House of David,” giving Jews and Christians independent evidence that the biblical King David was also a historical figure.

“This offers an independent witness that characters mentioned in biblical texts lived and breathed and fought with each other in the 10th century [BC],” said Marilyn Lundberg, associate director of the West Semitic Research Project at USC.

In addition, portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls will be displayed in California for the first time in more than 30 years.

The first of the scrolls were discovered in 1947 in a cave near the Dead Sea by shepherds reportedly looking for a lost goat. The writings contain the oldest-known copies of the Hebrew Scriptures and other writings from 200 BC to 50 AD. In all, about 80,000 writings in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek were found. The scrolls were one of the 20th century’s major archeological finds.

The exhibition also features other artifacts spanning 15,000 years in the Middle East and 50 lithographs by mid-19th century Scottish artist David Roberts.

Because of the historic significance of the scrolls and inscription, the exhibition will return to Israel immediately after it closes. Tickets for the show must be bought in advance.

Last year’s “Egyptian Treasures From the British Museum” drew more than 67,000 visitors during a similar three-month run. Officials are prepared to extend museum hours and open on Mondays if demand warrants.