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Dead Sea Cave Yields New Finds
New artifacts from the Second Temple period emerge.
Tucked almost secretively away within a cliff high above the Dead Sea, archaeologists have recently uncovered more artifacts that may hold clues to the history of a cave that has yielded contents dated to the turbulent times of Jesus, the First Century Jewish Revolt and the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Led by Dr. Haim Cohen of Israel’s Haifa University, a small team ascended a steep escarpment of rocky terrain to the cave each morning at 5.45 a.m. beginning on November 28 for several weeks of painstaking excavation. The routine climb took 2 hours to reach the excavation site, a cave where Cohen had previously conducted excavations in 2003 and 2006. Cave 27, also called the “Mikveh Cave” or Cave of the Pool at Nahal David, is best known for the Second Temple period (530 BCE to 70 CE) mikveh, or ritual cleansing pool, dated to the time of the first centuries B.C. and A.D. It was discovered and excavated just outside the cave entrance. The cave is located in a cliff approximately 400 meters above the Dead Sea and is accessible from a plateau above the cave. Among the many other finds excavated in past seasons were Early Roman period potsherds, flint tools, remains of straw matting, textiles, date pits, ropes, olive pits, animal bones, two coins of Agrippa I, a glass bottle, an iron trilobate arrowhead from the Early Roman period, a pottery seal with a geometric decoration considered to be from the Chalcolithic period, and an ashen hearth. The most intriguing questions, however, have surrounded the presence of the mikveh at the entrance to the cave, a relatively unusual location for such a feature.
Now, Cohen and his team have uncovered new artifacts and items that will add to their database of finds, a body of information or evidence that will help them answer some important questions about what the cave was used for, who may have inhabited or used the cave, and what significance the cave holds. Their most recent efforts have uncovered a large amount of pottery dated to the Second Temple period, and some dated to the Chalcolithic and Iron Age. Other finds included a few fragments of Roman period blown glass, identified as the base and rim pieces of perfume bottles; and an abundance of organic material such as twigs, branches of palm trees, animal bones, fragments of reed and straw, dates (one remarkably well preserved), rope, (including one knotted around a ceramic handle), fabric and leather, including a remarkably well preserved part of a sandal.
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View of the Dead Sea as seen from the cave. Photo courtesy Origins Discovery Project
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Cohen suggests that the cave may possibly have been, like the caves that harbored the Dead Sea Scrolls, a repository for sacred documents or artifacts, such as the lost archives of the Jewish Second Temple, possibly hidden away for protection and safekeeping from the Roman forces during the unrest of the 1st century A.D. Revolt. Along with the mikveh, among past finds at the site has been additional evidence of possible priestly activity, such as a leather scroll cover.
Cohen will be returning with a team in 2013. ”The shortage of time prevented us from achieving all the objectives we had set, although we did succeed in clearing up the complicated stratigraphy of the cave and the history of the usage”, says Cohen. “We intend to come back to the cave to finish our work in a short time.”
Much more work is left to be done. He and his colleagues are calling for volunteers and students who may be interested in participating in the effort. More information can be obtained at the Origins Discovery Project website.
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Cover Photo, Top Left: Excavators at work outside of Cave 27. Photo courtesy Origins Discovery Project
*Republished with permission from Popular Archaeology
That would make an interesting project
” …the history of a cave that has yielded contents dated to the turbulent times of Jesus, the First Century Jewish Revolt and the Dead Sea Scrolls.”
I do hate it when an article starts with a lie. The gospel copies found with the Dead Sea scrolls are OLDER than the Christian story time line, which has to fit into a very narrow time band when Pontius Pilate was Roman potentate in Judea. The turbulent times didn’t begin in earnest until the 4th century when Christianity was created out of many pagan cults and formed a consensus. All other religious texts were outlawed and Christianity was enforced on the entire Roman empire which included Judea and vast area’s of the middle east, all the way around the Mediterranean sea. They couldn’t destroy them because it would have been blasphemous to them, so they buried them with great care.
The Dead Sea scroll copies of the gospels DISPROVES Christianity.
The rest of the article is very unlikely to contain any truth about their findings.
The only revolt going on in Judea during the 1st century was between Judea and their Roman overlords. Eventually in 70CE the Roman empire got so fed up with their trouble making, they wiped them off the face of Earth and raised Jerusalem to the ground. End of problem.
Here Pixie Pixie Pixie…
I have a nice Double Eagle gold coin for you. A pre 1933 American twenty dollar Liberty Head is yours if you can introduce one itty bitty teeny weeny piece of evidence that anything you said here is ANYTHING but lies.
LIES. LIES. LIES.
There were no gospels found in the caves at Qumran Pixelator. And you are the only Goobersmoocher on the planet who thinks there were.
But — as BIN is my witness — the gold coin is yours if you can spit up even the limpest, soggiest chunk of evidence that you aren’t just a talebearer. (and supposedly a professor who doesn’t even know the difference between ‘acetic’ and ‘aesthetic’)
Liar.
Good luck.