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New Finds at Ein Gedi
There’s Still (Archaeological) Gold in Them Thar Hills
Excavators have found two folded papyri and 11 bronze coins in a desert cave within the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve, near the western shore of the Dead Sea. Three of the coins bear the name “Shimon,” Hebrew for Simon, and date to the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome (132–135 A.D.), which was led by Simon Bar-Kokhba. The artifacts were discovered last November by a team headed by Hebrew University’s Amos Frumkin and Bar Ilan University’s Hanan Eshel, inside a cave measuring just 23 feet by 13 feet.
“It is very emotional and exciting to make such a find,” Frumkin told BAR. “There has been this notion among some archaeologists for many years that the Judean Desert is clean of archaeological documents because most of the discoveries were made between 1947 and 1965 [particularly the Dead Sea Scrolls—Ed.]. They said that everything had either been looted or discovered. But when they actually looked at the archaeological literature and documentation covering what had been done in the Judean Desert, they discovered that large areas of the desert had not been explored at all.”
Roi Porat, a graduate student working with Eshel, discovered the papyrus documents after rappelling into the previously unexplored but easily visible cave. Both of the papyri are written in Greek, suggesting that they are administrative or economic documents—perhaps real estate records. Both papyri have been sent to the Israel Museum for decipherment.
“When the people fled to the caves, they took their most important possessions with them,” Eshel notes. “They believed they would be returning to their homes, and these papyri, which may well show their ownership of property, would allow them to reclaim their lives afterwards.” A decade ago, Eshel discovered ancient documents in the Judean desert that showed that real estate prices during the revolt remained stable but fell sharply by 135 C.E., when people were leaving their homes en masse.
Ancient textiles were also discovered in an abandoned owl’s nest in the cave. It seems that the owl’s taste in home furnishings was not limited to antiquities: “The first thing we have to do before studying the ancient cloth,” says Eshel, “is to separate it from jeans material the owl also used to feather its nest.”
With the support of Stanford University’s Geophysical Project, headed by Amos Nur, the Israeli team began surveying unexplored caves in the area north of Ein Gedi. “We put together a skilled group, including an archaeologist, geologist, speleologist [cave specialist] and cartographer to go into the remote places,” Frumkin says. All team members were trained in rope climbing and scaling techniques. A light aircraft was chartered to conduct an aerial survey and spot cave entrances.
“When you are standing on the escarpment you cannot see hidden entrances even if they are only a few meters away from you,” remarked Frumkin. “We started moving across the area meter by meter very carefully, covering all the caves in the reserve.” Over the past year the team has pinpointed some 100 caves in an area just a few kilometers long. In four of these caves (besides the one at Ein Gedi) they found coins, arrows and spears—evidence that the caves were used as refuges by Bar-Kokhba rebels fleeing the Romans.
Eshel estimates that half of the 020rebels hiding out in caves in the Judean wilderness were found by the Romans, who probably smoked them out of their hidden caves, besieged or starved them to death. But as Eshel notes, “We always knew that some had survived, mainly in caves that were impossible to reach.”
Unlike the First Jewish Revolt against Rome (66–70 C.E.), which was recorded by the historian Josephus Flavius, there is very little documentation about the Bar-Kokhba revolt. Talmudic sources tell us that the revolt was led by the charismatic Bar-Kokhba, whose name, some scholars believe, means “son of a star”—perhaps a messianic allusion. The rebellion was suppressed in 135 C.E. by Emperor Hadrian, who then exiled the Jews from Jerusalem and Judea.
No human remains have been found in the current survey of the caves. Perhaps the inhabitants of the recently discovered hideout decided to leave and begin new lives elsewhere when news of the revolt’s failure reached them. But why did they leave their money and weapons behind? Eshel says that Bar-Kokhba did not mint his own coins from scratch, but rather imprinted them over the image of the emperor on existing Roman coins. “It would have been dangerous for these people to be caught with coins on which the emperor’s image had been stamped out, or with weapons.”
For more on the discoveries in the Judean desert, see Richard A. Freund and Rami Arav,
Dead Sea Scrolls in Michigan
Grand Rapids Hosts Priceless Artifacts
Twelve of the Dead Sea Scrolls and more than 80 related artifacts from the ancient settlement of Qumran, near the caves where the scrolls were found, are on display through June 1 at the Van Andel Museum Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Staff at the museum—which is home to permanent exhibitions on the local furniture industry and the culture of Michigan’s Anishinabe people—are bracing themselves for an unprecedented 200,000 visitors. This is the only North American exhibition of the 2,000-year-old scrolls scheduled for 2003.
Grand Rapids was originally scheduled as the third and final stop, after Salt Lake City and Houston, of a Dead Sea Scrolls touring exhibition. The Salt Lake City show was planned to coincide with the 2002 Winter Olympics, but was canceled due to concerns about terrorism after the September 11 attacks. When Houston was also dropped from the itinerary, museum officials in Grand Rapids obtained permission from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), the Israeli government agency that oversees the scrolls, to host the exhibition alone.
Over recent months the museum has transformed itself into a corner of the Judean desert. Visitors walk through a simulated cave as they learn the story of the scrolls. In the museum’s planetarium, a half-hour video show simulates the experience of standing on the shore of the Dead Sea. Even the museum restaurant now bills itself as the “Oasis Café,” serving up typical Middle Eastern delicacies such as couscous and hummus. “We hope you’ll be able to see, hear, and occasionally smell and taste that part of the world,” explains Timothy Chester, director of the Public Museum of Grand Rapids, which incorporates the Van Andel Museum Center. For the intellectually curious, the museum has stocked a resource room with a variety of learning materials relating to the scrolls.
Two academic conferences and a series of public lectures round out the exhibition events. Bastiaan Van Elderen, a professor of New Testament Studies at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, has organized a conference to be held from March 31-April 2 in honor of Emanuel Tov, editor-in-chief of the Dead Sea Scrolls publication project. “We’re bringing together some of the best people in the field,” notes Van Elderen, who expects attendance to top 100. A second conference on manuscript conservation (to be held on May 20 and 21) will feature talks by conservators from the Midwest and Israel.
Ticket sales began in September and are brisk, with groups booking from as far away as Texas and Florida. Tickets cost $14 for adults and $10.50 for children. They can be purchased online at www.grmuseum.org, by phone at (616) 456–3977, or in person at the museum’s front desk. For more information on either of the conferences, visit the museum’s Web site. An exhibition catalog, featuring 56 photographs and essays by leading scholars in the field, is published by Eerdmans; further details can be found at www.eerdmans.com.
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What is it?
A. Ankle-laces from Roman caligae (military boots)
B. Ancient Jewish phylacteries
C. Straps of a schoolboy’s satchel found in Alexandria
D. Cords used to tie the Dead Sea Scrolls
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What it is, is…
D. Cords used to tie the Dead Sea Scrolls
These broken leather scroll-ties, with tabs for fastening, were found at the ancient settlement of Qumran in the Judean Desert, near the caves that once contained the Dead Sea Scrolls. They may have been used to bind the Dead Sea Scrolls themselves. Along with 12 scrolls and more than 80 artifacts from Qumran—including inkwells, coins and leather sandals—they are on view through June 1 at the Van Andel Museum Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan, as part of a major Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition (see story above). For further details, visit www.grmuseum.org.
New Finds at Ein Gedi
There’s Still (Archaeological) Gold in Them Thar Hills
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