Archaeologists have long resigned themselves to the belief that the Dead Sea in the West Bank had already yielded all its secrets from the Roman era but last week a sensational new discovery was made. The Weekend Witness reports that fragments of a Biblical manuscript dating back to the last Jewish revolt against the Romans in 135 AD Judea have been uncovered near the Dead Sea.
| Only a few centimetres long, the pieces contain extracts in Hebrew from the Biblical Book of Leviticus. Damaged by bat droppings and lying under a film of dirt in a cave near the Ein Gedi oasis, the Bedouin pocketed the manuscripts and began an arduous bidding process with Professor Eshel. `Thanks to this find, we now know a little more about the troubled period that gave rise to the Jewish revolt against the Romans,` Eshel told AFP. The second Jewish revolt against Roman occupation led by Simeon Bar Koshba saw 900 Jewish towns and villages pillaged, 10 000 Romans killed, Jerusalem recaptured and Jews banned from entering its confines. `We know these parchments came from a Torah scroll used by Jews in the spring of 135 during Passover, which they then hid in the caves to save it from the Roman legions,` said Eshel. Historians believe Jews managed to hide 14 Torah scrolls in the caves, but Eshel said the latest manuscripts prove there was a 15th such scroll. |
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