Jerusalem: Eleazar Sukenik

After the Dead Sea Scrolls from Cave 1 were found by the Bedouin and taken to Bethlehem, they ended up in front of Eleazar Sukenik, a professor and archaeologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who is the man in this picture. He was the first scholar to see them, and he did so across a barbed wire barricade separating Jewish and Arab sectors in the Old City during the last days of the British mandate over Palestine in 1948. He immediately recognized their importance and was able to procure three scrolls -the War Scroll, the Thanksgiving Psalms Scroll, and the second of two Isaiah scrolls (aka "1QIsaiah B").