A Bedouin shepherd got here throughout the primary of the traditional scrolls in 1947. He discovered them saved in jars in a collapse Qumran close to the northern tip of the Dead Sea. Some have been bought to a monastery and others to an antiquities seller in Bethlehem. Once their authenticity had been established, archaeological expeditions and antiquity robbers adopted and emptied the caves of no matter they may discover.
But a long time later, the Judean Desert nonetheless had extra secrets and techniques to surrender.
Amid indicators that robbers have been nonetheless searching for and hawking artifacts from the world, components of that are troublesome to succeed in and govern, the Israeli authorities determined to hold out a methodical, complete survey of the cliffs, gorges and caves starting in 2017.
“The archaeologists always used to chase after the robbers,” mentioned Amir Ganor, who leads the Antiquities Authority’s theft-prevention unit. “We decided it was perhaps time to get ahead of the robbers.”
Aided by fashionable instruments equivalent to drones that might search each nook and cranny, three groups made up of 4 individuals every mapped and scoured about 50 miles of cliff face working the size of the Dead Sea.
Access to some of the caves would have been simpler in historic instances. People knew learn how to navigate the animal paths, Mr. Ganor mentioned, and as an alternative of rappelling, they might have used rope ladders for distant caverns. But over 2,000 years, components of the terrain have collapsed, creating deep chasms.
The West Bank was underneath Jordanian management from 1948 till Israel captured the world within the 1967 Middle East struggle. It is now divided between Israeli and partial Palestinian management. But the 1967 boundary didn’t exist in antiquity, Mr. Ganor mentioned, and the archaeologists handled the Judean Desert as one unit for the needs of the survey.
In the MurabBa’at caves, in what’s now the West Bank, the archaeologists turned up a trove of artifacts. That included the basket and a cache of uncommon cash from the times of the Bar Kokhba revolt, minted with Jewish symbols equivalent to a harp and date palms.
