Marina Rassovsky, manager of the chemical laboratory of the Israel Museum, works with the remains of the bottom of an ancient zinc coffin found at the West Bank archaelogical site of Qumran.
Archaeologists digging near the location of where the Dead Sea Scrolls where found in 1947, have turned up the site of a grave. The grave was discovered earlier using state of the art radar. It is doubtful that they will ever know who was buried here.
Grave robbers had beaten the archaeologists to the site having noticed the activity going on during the radar mapping. The only remains within the grave left was the bottom of the casket. This consists of a zinc lined wooden casket. This is the first time that such a casket has been discovered in the Palestine/Israel area. The zinc had been soldered around an inner wooden casket.
It is considered that whoever is buried here was influential person. The coffin base is undergoing chemical analysis but no bone or other fragments remain to obtain a date of death from. They think the grave robbers got the best, having removed the top of the casket, which mat have born some indication of who was buried here and any skeletal remains
