Daring ‘rescue’ mission results in Dead Sea Scroll finds, other rare discoveries
Biblical texts found during a multi-year Israeli expedition make headlines, but archaeologists are buzzing over an intact Stone-Age basket.
ByKristin Romey
Email
The first Dead Sea Scroll fragments found in more than a half-century, and what is possibly the world’s oldest intact basket, were among the discoveries made during a multi-year effort to thwart looting in remote caves across the Judean Desert, the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced this week.
In many instances, archaeologists have had to rappel hundreds of feet down sheer cliff faces and dig through piles of bird and bat guano to uncover artifacts that may be the target of similarly equipped looters in the sparsely populated, arid region along the western shore of the Dead Sea.
Volunteers look at a document in the Cave of Horror. (Yaniv Berman/Israel Antiquities Authority)
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A large archaeological operation in Israel has uncovered new ancient pieces of Scripture, along with other exciting finds.
The Israel Antiquities Authority says that they have been working at the site on the cliffs of the Judean Desert since 2017. The project was undertaken in order to prevent thieves from looting the site, which is a common practice. On Tuesday the Antiquities Authority unveiled their discoveries.
Among the discoveries were fragments of a scroll containing the passage of Zechariah 8:16-17; “These are the things you are to do: Speak the truth to one another, render true and perfect justice in your gates. And do not contrive evil against one another, and do not love perjury, because all those are things that I hate declares the Lord.”
Mar 17, 2021
Teams of diggers rappelled down a dangerous mountain cliff to the “Cave of Horror” and found dozens of fragments of a 2,000-year-old biblical scroll and more.
By Yakir Benzion, United With Israel
The Israel Antiquities Authority announced Tuesday that an archaeological team has made one of the most dramatic and challenging recovery operations from an almost inaccessible cave high up a mountain cliff in the Judean desert.
In a four-year operation, teams of archaeologists assisted by students in pre-army programs had to rappel down a mountain cliff to reach the opening of a cave where they discovered fragments of a biblical scroll that dates to the Bar Kokhba revolt, a nearly 6,000-year-old skeleton of a child and the oldest completely preserved basket ever found in the world.
In race against looters, archeologists uncovered fragments containing Greek verses from Biblical books of Zechariah and Nahum, coins from time of Bar-Kokhba Revolt, 6,000-year-old mummified skeleton of child, 10,000-year-old basket in perfect condition