The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 972 texts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at Khirbet Qumran (now known as the West Bank). They were found on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, from which they derive their name. The texts are of great historical, religious and linguistic significance because they include the earliest known surviving manuscripts of works later included in the Hebrew Bible canon, along with extra-biblical manuscripts which preserve evidence of the diversity of religious thought in late Second Temple Judaism. The texts are written in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Nabataean, mostly on parchment but with some written on papyrus and bronze. The manuscripts have been dated to various ranges between 408 BC and 318 AD. James Bieberkraut (April 16 1879 - August 1981) was a German artist who also specialized in document restoration. He gained worldwide recognition when he opened the Genesis Apocryphon, one of the original seven Dead Sea Scrolls. In 1981, he was again asked to deal with them, namely, to preserve them safely for the next 2000 years. He died in 1981 at the age of 102.