Israeli archaeologists have unearthed two dozen films of the Dead Sea from a remote cave in the Jewish desert, the first discovery of such Jewish religious texts in more than half a century.
“For the first time in about 60 years, archaeological excavations have uncovered fragments of a biblical scroll,” the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) said in a statement.
More than 20 pieces of parchment were found after crews ripped off an 80-meter cliff and purged through the cave of horror, so named because of the precarious position and because 40 skeletons of women, men and children were there during the excavations in the 1960s was found.
Jewish rebels are believed to have hidden in the gorge south of Jerusalem two millennia ago to escape a Roman advance. The fragments from the Hebrew Bible were possibly dumped in the cave during the Bar Kochba uprising, a Jewish uprising against the Roman emperor Hadrian, between AD132 and AD136.
The IAA said that the scrolls it found were Greek translations of the books of Zechariah and Nahum from the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets, and that they date radiocarbon to the 2nd century AD. The name of God is written in Hebrew.
One passage reads: “These are the things you must do: speak the truth to one another, give true and perfect justice in your gates.”
After years of digging over caves and cliffs, authorities said they also discovered a skeleton of a child of six millennia and a basket that described it as the oldest in the world, more than 10,000 years old.
Authorities ordered the operation in 2017 following reports of looting.
Israel Hasson, director of the IAA, said the findings were a wake-up call to spend more resources to continue the project, and said he had so far investigated only half of the cliffs.
“We have to make sure we retrieve all the data that has not yet been discovered in the caves before the robbers do that. “Some things are out of value,” Hasson said.
Sections of the excavation took place in the occupied West Bank, part of the Palestinian territories, a common Israeli custom that led to controversy. The IAA coordinated with the Department of Defense, which manages the occupation.
The original Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of Jewish texts, were also found in desert caves in the West Bank. However, they were discovered by nomadic Bedouin shepherds in the 1940s and 1950s.
These texts contain portions of the Hebrew Bible that are 1,000 years older than any previously known copy and have revolutionized the understanding of Judaism from which early Christianity originated.