A Complete Handwritten Torah Scroll dating from circa the early to mid 18th century (c.1700-1750).
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THE FOUNDATIONAL TEXT OF JUDAISM AND A HIGHLY IMPORTANT PART OF THE SCRIPTURE OF CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM. AN INCREDIBLE EARLY SURVIVING COMPLETE SEFER TORAH SCROLL.
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A remarkable surviving Sefer Torah scroll containing the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy (Bereishit, Shemot, Vayikra, Bamidbar, and Devarim). This Sefer Torah was written by a skilled scribe and is written on gevil parchment (Kosher), most likely goatskin in this case or perhaps deer.
This is a fantastic Sefer Torah scroll written in the manner it has been written for thousands of years. According to the Talmud, Moses (Moshe) used gevil for the Torah scroll he placed into the Ark of the Covenant and the Talmud recommends the use of gevil over klaf for this reason. Most of the Dead Sea Scrolls were written on gevil. The preparation of gevil parchment is incredibly laborious and expensive and so these complete scrolls are extremely rare, even more so today.
Due to the persecutions of Jewish communities throughout history, particularly in the 20th century, many Torah scrolls have been destroyed. Sefer Torah scrolls this old are almost always incomplete with sections lacking. We have not checked the Kashrut (ritual fitness) of this scroll, but we have examined the entire scroll and no characters are missing throughout, though some have been renewed. We can't guarantee that this scroll is Kosher as this has not been checked, but it is written on Kosher material, the script is incredibly high quality and was clearly produced by a highly skilled scribe, and the text appears complete. No sections are missing.
This was produced during the Ottoman period, probably in North Africa or perhaps Turkey, and is certainly 18th century or earlier. The manner of aging is similar to a single section containing two chapters of Exodus which we sold and knew the age of as the 17th century, c.1650. We have here suggested a slightly later date, perhaps c.1750, predominantly as the condition is so remarkable, but it could well have just been very well cared for through its history, and we do see evidence of restorative work in places.
This Torah scroll has a beautiful cover from circa the late 1800s or early 1900s, also with a Wimpel cover holding the scroll together, and with bespoke handmade wooden handles.
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The Writing of a Torah Scroll:
A complete Torah scroll like this contains 304,805 letters and when fully rolled out is over 120 feet long. Indeed, it took us most of a full day to fully unroll and look through the scroll which was an incredible experience. They generally take a trained scribe 12-18 months of constant careful and precise work to complete. The ink and parchment used are subject to specific rules. After the preparation of the gevil parchment, the scribe must mark out the parchment using the sargel (ruler) ensuring the guidelines are straight, which we see clear evidence of in this scroll. The majority of modern Torah scrolls contain 42 lines of text per column with Yemenite scrolls containing 51 lines. Very strict rules regarding the position and appearance of the Hebrew alphabet are observed, and we see this for example with the placement of the inverted nuns in the book of Numbers, following the very old tradition of doing so.
The text in this Sefer Torah scroll is so beautifully written. Looking at Genesis 1:1 for example, we see the famous "Beresheet bara Elohim et ha-shamiym v'et ha-arets" (transliterated), or "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Reading and experiencing a complete handwritten Torah scroll is something that the vast majority of people who follow the Abrahamic religions will never get to experience. The earliest surviving complete Torah scroll is from circa 1200 CE and so this scroll is rather early indeed. At the time of writing we also have some of the earliest extant fragments from circa the 10th-11th centuries of an original Codex from the book of Exodus available.
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Sales Records:
Fully complete Torah scrolls are very rare to the market. A much later (c.1800s) miniature Torah scroll of similar construction (but written on vellum and thus inferior) which was just 270mm tall sold for $19,200 USD at Christie's 15th Nov 2005 lot 14. This is $32,300 adjusted for inflation (~£25,500 GBP).
Indeed, we could not trace any sales records for comparable complete Torah scrolls written on gevil parchment of full size. A later Torah scroll without rollers sold for $11,000 USD in 2015 at Pasarel Auctions in Israel. This was also smaller and had many letters erased etc. The most we can trace is for single sections of Torah scrolls like this, like part of a single section we sold for £1,500. Given that a complete Torah is comprised of approximately 80 full sections, one can clearly see the value present here.
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Size: 1140 mm (approx., Atzei Chayim height)
Parchment height: 520 mm (approx)
Text height: 430 mm (approx)
Condition:
Complete with all sections. All sections are attached, though some joints are split between sections as typical. The entire text is fully legible with some sections with the text restored as pictured. Some occasional minor staining/heavier toning in places but generally exceptionally clean throughout. The sections of the scroll containing Genesis and most of Exodus are near flawless. The video is taken from this area. The majority of the scroll presents as with that video, but there is more creasing and wear towards the centre of the scroll as expected, and a little more towards the end of the Torah. We do have additional photos of the majority of the scroll available, but we are here limited to providing 24 photos. We did locate a few particularly significant sections throughout the Torah and have provided photos of these, including the Tetragrammaton (famously transliterated as YHWH).
For a better idea of the condition, refer to the provided photos where we have included anything significant regarding the condition.
*this scroll has an approximate mass of 12 kg (26 lbs), and when packaged will be about 15 kg (33 lbs).*
