“These are the things you should do: Speak the truth to one another, judge truth and judgment of peace in your cities. And don’t contrive evil against one another, and don’t love perjury, because all these are what I hate—declares the Lord.” (Zecharya 8:16-17).

Thes above pessukim were uncovered in an exceedingly rare discovery, in which dozens of 2,000-year-old scroll fragments were excavated under arduous conditions in a bold rescue operation from the Judean Desert “Cave of Horror,” the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced on Tuesday.

The parchment fragments, bearing pessukim from the neviim of Zecharya and Nachum, are written in Greek, with only the names of Hashem written in Hebrew – in the script used during the time of the first Beis Hamikdash.

They are believed to have belonged to Jews hiding from the Romans during the Bar Kochba Revolt, almost 1,900 years ago.

The discovery comes 70 years after the original discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls by Bedouin shepherds, considered the most important archaeological discovery of the 20th century, and 60 years after the last discovery of biblical scrolls.

The “Cave of Horror” -so named after 40 skeletons of men, women and children – Jews hiding from the Romans during the Bar Kochva revolt – were discovered within it in the 1960s, is located in a remote canyon in the Judean desert, 80 meters (260 feet) below a clifftop. The cave is “flanked by gorges and can only be reached by rappelling precariously down the sheer cliff,” a press release from the IAA said.

Along with the scroll fragments, other extraordinary discoveries were uncovered, including a partially mummified skeleton of a child wrapped in cloth, a large basket and a cache of rare Bar-Kochva-era coins.

“On moving two flat stones, we discovered a shallow pit intentionally dug beneath them, containing a skeleton of a child placed in a fetal position,” said prehistorian Ronit Lupu of the Israel Antiquities Authority. “It was covered with a cloth around its head and chest, like a small blanket, with its feet protruding from it. It was obvious that whoever buried the child had wrapped him up and pushed the edges of the cloth beneath him, just as a parent covers his child in a blanket. A small bundle of cloth was clutched in the child’s hands. The child’s skeleton and the cloth wrapping were remarkably well preserved and because of the climatic conditions in the cave, a process of natural mummification had taken place; the skin, tendons, and even the hair were partially preserved, despite the passage of time.”

A preliminary study of a CT scan of the child, carried out by Dr. Hila May from Tel Aviv University, suggests that this child was 6-12 years old.

The IAA has been carrying out a daring rescue operation since 2017 in efforts to salvage artifacts from Judean caves, saving them from the rampant looting in the area since the lucrative discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls.

“The desert team showed exceptional courage, dedication and devotion to purpose, rappelling down to caves located between heaven and earth, digging and sifting through them, enduring thick and suffocating dust, and returning with gifts of immeasurable worth for mankind.” said Israel Antiquities Authority’s director Israel Hasson, the head of the rescue operation.

“The newly discovered scroll fragments are a wake-up call to the state. Resources must be allocated for the completion of this historically important operation. We must ensure that we recover all the data that has not yet been discovered in the caves before the robbers do. Some things are beyond value.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)