World History and Culture: Israel found new Dead Sea scrolls for the first time in 60 years

New fragments of a Dead Sea Scroll have been discovered during an exhaustive survey of every nook in the Judean Desert, the Israel Antiquities Authority. It is the first new scroll to have been discovered in about 60 years. Written mainly in Greek, the newly unveiled scroll contains portions of the book of the 12 minor prophets, including Zechariah and Nahum.

The discovery is likely a missing part of a Minor Prophets scroll discovered in 1952, which includes Micah’s prophecy about the End of Days and the rise of a ruler out of Bethlehem.

Another particularly exciting discovery was may be the oldest surviving basket in the world. Made of woven reeds, the basket is more than 10,500 years old, based on radiocarbon dating by Prof. Elisabetta Boaretto of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot. That is the Neolithic period, predating the arrival of pottery in the region (pottery did arise in eastern Asia well beforehand).

The basket survived all these years because of the remarkable heat and aridity in its location: the Murabba'at caves in the Nahal Darga Reserve.

Besides, the archaeologists found a cache of coins from the days of the ill-fated Bar Kochba revolt against the Romans in 133-135 C.E. The coins bear the typical Jewish symbols of the time, such as a harp and a date palm.

Working in three teams under IAA officials Oriah Amichai, Hagay Hamer and Haim Cohen, the searchers also discovered arrow and spear tips, woven fabric, sandals and even lice combs from the time of the revolt.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were written from about the third or second century B.C.E. to the first century C.E., though by whom is not known. Only a few of the approximately 900 found are more or less complete. The rest are damaged and fragmented. Yet study of the scrolls has been possible, including thanks to painstaking restoration. We now know they contain the earliest known versions of many biblical texts, religious Apocrypha, commentaries and mystical manuscripts.

Lending credence to the theory that the scrolls weren’t written by a single people, some are in Hebrew, some Aramaic and some in Greek. The newest scroll to be found, or rather the fragments thereof is in Greek.

These extraordinary discoveries were made in a massive mission to find relics from prehistoric and biblical times. The national project of combing through all caves and ravines of the Judean Desert began in 2017 as an IAA project in cooperation with the Staff Officer of the Archaeology Department of the Civil Administration in the West Bank and was funded by the Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Ministry.

Of all the hundreds of found scrolls, only three are relatively complete. According to scientists, the rest are about 25 thousand fragments. Researchers try to reconstruct the texts from fragments. They apply advanced technologies in their work.

About the new scroll, the IAA reported that although it is written in Greek, the God's name “Yahweh” is rendered by Hebrew letters, which is typical of the period of the First Temple.

At the moment, about 80 kilometres of caves have been studied. Research in remote places is performed with drones.

A Bedouin shepherd discovered the first scrolls in 1947. It brought a new light to our knowledge of the Jewish religious schools of the Second Temple period. Ancient texts contain valuable information about the many religious communities and sects that formed the modern nature of Judaism and Christianity.