Archaeologists had finished with the cave more than 50 years ago, but looters proved that the Cave of the Skulls had more treasures to reveal. Another official excavation was therefore undertaken as a preventative measure in 2016.
Numbered “Cave 32,” the Cave of the Skulls is part of the Large Cave Complex located at the top of a high vertical cliff in the northern bank of Nahal Ze’elim Valley in the Judean Desert—about a third of a mile southwest of the trail known as “the Leopard Ascent” (Hebrew: Ma’ale Namer). The cave received its name from the late Professor Yohanan Aharoni of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who discovered seven human skulls within a niche deep inside the eastern wing of the cave during his 1960 archaeological expedition to Nahal Ze’elim and the Large Cave Complex. This is the largest and richest cave in the Large Cave Complex, which includes, among other caves, the Cave of the Arrows (Cave 31), named for the 12 wooden arrows discovered there, and the Cave of the Scrolls (Cave 34), where eight documents from the Roman period were found.
Aharoni’s first expedition to Nahal Ze’elim included surveys and excavations in a few caves; it was conducted due to suspicions that ancient documents, which appeared on the antiquities market in the late 1950s, had been looted from the caves of Nahal Ze’elim. Aharoni’s expedition in the Large Cave Complex brought to light finds from various periods, such as the Chalcolithic (4500–3300 B.C.E.), the Early Bronze Age (3300–2000 B.C.E.) and the time of the Bar-Kokhba Revolt (132–135 C.E.). Among the finds were the first written 019documents uncovered by archaeologists within the territory of the State of Israel, as well as ancient weapons, pottery and coins.1 Inside one of the tunnels in the western wing of the Cave of the Skulls, Aharoni’s excavation revealed two hoards of Chalcolithic beads wrapped in ancient textiles, the largest bead hoards ever found in Israel.
These discoveries drove the archaeological institutions in Israel to embark on a large-scale archaeological project in the Judean Desert caves, known as the Judean Desert Operation. Dozens of cliff caves were surveyed and excavated in the frame of this project in the springs of 1960 and 1961. During the first campaign, held two months after the original expedition to Nahal Ze’elim, Aharoni returned to the Large Cave Complex for further excavations but failed to find more written documents. Eventually, he decided to leave the complex in favor of other caves in the region.
Since Aharoni’s 1960 expedition, the Large Cave Complex has been a preferred target for looters, who are attracted by its remote location and the high probability of precious archaeological finds. Since 2005, our team has conducted a few surveys in the cave complex. Those visits have made it clear that despite the frequent looting, there is still much to discover—including undisturbed areas of the cave complex and looting dumps that still contain valuable archaeological finds.
In 2009, the Antiquities Theft Prevention Unit of the Israel Antiquities Authority seized from the antiquities market a rare Aramaic papyrus bearing the date “Year Four of the Destruction of Beit Israel.” Dated to 139/140 C.E., four years after the Bar-Kokhba Revolt, this is a receipt of a ketuba (Jewish prenuptial agreement) that was signed in Beit Amar, one of the ancient Jewish villages in the southern Hebron Hills.2 Reliable information indicates that this document was looted in Nahal Ze’elim’s Large Cave Complex. This location seems probable because of its easy accessibility from the southern Hebron Hills.
Two archaeological testimonies suggest that the Large Cave Complex was used even after the extinguishment of the Bar-Kokhba Revolt in 135/136 C.E. First, the secondary burials in the Cave of the Skulls may attest that some refugees returned after the revolt in order to bury the deceased in accordance with Jewish burial customs of the time. Second, two coins from the beginning of the third century C.E.—a period mostly absent from other Judean Desert caves—were excavated in the Cave of the Scrolls by Aharoni.3
In November 2014, information appeared regarding contemporary illegal excavations in the Cave of the Skulls. Inspectors of the Antiquities Theft Prevention Unit were able to arrest the looters and seize from them various archaeological finds, such as a wooden comb from the Roman period and a Neolithic arrowhead. Consisting of six men from the village of Sa‘ir in the vicinity of Hebron, the gang was equipped with shovels, ropes and metal detectors. They were fined and sentenced to 18 months in prison on the charges of irreparable destruction of an archaeological site and theft of cultural heritage items.
Following this damage, a three-week salvage excavation took place at the Cave of the Skulls in May and June 2016. This joint expedition of the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Institute 057of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem was headed by the authors of this paper.4 With the assistance of hundreds of volunteers from Israel and abroad, the excavation included a temporary camp, erected at the head of the cliff for overnight stays and logistic purposes. Descent into the cave was made using safety systems, including metal cables, ladders and ropes.
We systematically excavated in all parts of the cave, including in the difficult-to-access interior areas. All excavated material was transferred to the rock shelf in front of the cave openings, where it was carefully sifted. It turned out that there are certain areas in the cave that have not been damaged over the years by looting activities, and in some cases we were able to identify undisturbed layers of ancient human activity. We also found various items from different materials and periods, particularly from the Chalcolithic and Roman periods.
Two small papyri fragments bearing Hebrew/Aramaic script deserve special mention. Another interesting discovery is a cluster of beads wrapped in a textile bundle—similar to those found during Aharoni’s excavations—buried in a natural niche at the edge of the cave’s western wing.
The excavation made use of high-resolution methods of excavation and documentation, including total sifting and systematic sampling of excavated contexts. Using 21st-century standards for material processing and analysis, we expect the excavations to shed new light on human activity in the Judean Desert cliff caves, particularly during the Late Prehistoric and Roman periods. A comparative examination will not only enable a reexamination of the Chalcolithic phase—which is known from numerous cave sites, including the Cave of the Treasure in the nearby Nahal Mishmar—but will also shed light on human presence in the region’s caves during the lesser-known phases, such as the Early Bronze Age 1B.5 Besides the more “common” categories of finds, such as pottery, flint, glass and stone artifacts, these comparative analyses will encompass large assemblages of artifacts made of organic materials (textiles, ropes, basketry and objects of leather, wood and bone), as well as the numerous vegetal food and faunal remains that have been preserved in excellent condition in the cave’s dry micro-climate.
The excavation in the Cave of the Skulls was just the first part of the project that also involves laboratory examinations and the scientific publication of both Aharoni’s and the current expedition’s findings. Preliminary results have already shown that despite the intensive antiquities looting, artifacts of scientific importance can still be found in the Judean Desert caves.
Archaeologists had finished with the cave more than 50 years ago, but looters proved that the Cave of the Skulls had more treasures to reveal. Another official excavation was therefore undertaken as a preventative measure in 2016. Numbered “Cave 32,” the Cave of the Skulls is part of the Large Cave Complex located at the top of a high vertical cliff in the northern bank of Nahal Ze’elim Valley in the Judean Desert—about a third of a mile southwest of the trail known as “the Leopard Ascent” (Hebrew: Ma’ale Namer). The cave received its name from the late Professor […]
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Yohanan Aharoni, “Expedition B,” Israel Exploration Journal 11 (1961), pp. 11–24; Baruch Lifshitz, “The Greek Documents from Naḥal Ṣeelim and Naḥal Mishmar,” Israel Exploration Journal 11 (1961), pp. 53–62.
2.
Esther Eshel, Hanan Eshel and Ada Yardeni, “A Document from ‘Year Four of the Destruction of the House of Israel,’ ” Cathedra 132 (2009), pp. 5–24 [Hebrew].
3.
Eitan Klein, “A Remark on Roman Provincial Coins Found in Refuge Caves in the Judean Desert,” Israel Numismatic Journal 18 (2014), pp. 168–172.
4.
We would like to thank Israel Hasson, Director-General of the Israel Antiquities Authority, and Reuven Pinsky, Head of the National Heritage Department in the Prime Minister’s Office, for funding the project, as well as the Southern District and Cultural Heritage District of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority that contributed to the excavation’s successful results.
5.
Uri Davidovich, “The Early Bronze IB in the Judean Desert Caves,” Tel Aviv 39 (2012), pp. 3–19.
