Israeli archeologists locate 2,000-year-old remains of hidden biblical texts, along with a child’s preserved skeleton and a 10,500-year-old basket-
Israeli archeologists’ presentation this week of dozens of Dead Sea Scroll fragments is the first of its kind in six decades. The researchers also found a 6,000-year-old naturally mummified skeleton of a child and an intact woven basket thought to be 10,500 years old.
The 2,000-year old fragments of parchment are from the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets, including the books of Zechariah and Nahum. Written in Greek, they match a scroll discovered about 60 years ago. One fragment read: “These are the things you are to do: Speak the truth to one another, render true and perfect justice in your gates. And do not contrive evil against one another, and do not love perjury, because all those are things that I hate – declares the Lord,” according to a translation offered by the daily Haaretz.
Archeologists had to rappel down as much as 80 meters to the cave in Qumran, in the Judean desert, where they unearthed the items during a survey of more than 100 km of cliffs and caves that required the use of drones.
