Sebastian Scheiner / AP
Jerusalem – Israeli archaeologists on Tuesday announced the discovery of dozens of new ones Fragments of Dead Sea parchment with a biblical text. The fragments were found in a desert cave and were believed to be hidden during a Jewish revolt against Rome almost 1,900 years ago.
The parchment fragments contain lines of Greek text from the books of Zechariah and Nahum and have been dated with radiocarbon dating to the 2nd century AD, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority. They are the first new parchments found in archaeological excavations in the desert south of Jerusalem in 60 years.
The new pieces are believed to belong to a set of parchment fragments found in a place known as “The Cave of Horror”, so named because of the 40 human skeletons found there during excavations in the 1960s, which also they carry a Greek interpretation of the Twelve Minors. Prophets. The cave is located in a remote canyon in the Judean desert south of Jerusalem.
The fragments are believed to have been hidden in the cave during the Bar Kochba Revolt, an armed Jewish revolt against Rome during the reign of Emperor Hadrian between 132 and 136 AD.
The artifacts were found during an Israeli Antiquities Authority operation in the Judean Desert to find scrolls and other artifacts to prevent possible looting. The authority held a press conference on Tuesday to publicize the discovery.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of Jewish texts found in desert caves in the West Bank, near Qumran, in the 1940s and 1950s, they date from the 3rd century BC to the 1st century AD They include the first known copies of biblical texts and documents describing the beliefs of a poorly understood Jewish sect.