A Long Way to Shiloh

A Long Way to Shiloh (known in the US as The Menorah Men so as not to be thought a Civil War novel) is a thriller by Lionel Davidson. The book won the Crime Writers' Association's Gold Dagger Award.
Plot summary.
Caspar Laing is a Professor of Semitic Languages who is asked to translate an ancient parchment found in Israel. Fragmentary as the message is, it appears to give directions to the hiding place of a holy candelabrum rescued from the Jerusalem Temple before its destruction by the Romans in 70 AD. But the Jordanians have a copy of the parchment as well, and the search for the priceless "menorah" becomes a deadly cat and mouse hunt in the burning Negev desert. The story draws from the Copper Scroll found at Qumran in 1952, which lists buried treasure.