“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.”
These verses, from Zechariah 8:16–17, were discovered on dozens of fragments of parchment, dating back some two millennia, in a complex and challenging national-archaeological operation undertaken by the Israel Antiquities Authority on the cliffs of the Judean Desert, since 2017, in order to prevent antiquities looting. The historic discovery comes 60 years after the last discovery of biblical scrolls in archaeological excavations. In addition to the scroll fragments, the operation uncovered additional extraordinary finds from various periods: a cache of rare coins from the days of Bar-Kokhba, a 6,000 year-old skeleton of a child – likely female, wrapped in a cloth and mummified, and a large complete basket dating back 10,500 years, likely the oldest in the world.
The national project of surveying the caves of the Judean Desert and their excavation is undertaken in desert caves and ravines since 2017, by the Israel Antiquities Authority, in cooperation with Staff Officer of the Archaeology Department of the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria, and funded by the Ministry of Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage. Today, its results were first unveiled.
The Dead Sea Scrolls include the earliest known copies of the Biblical Books. As such, they are considered the most important archaeological discovery of the 20th century. The scroll fragments, which bear verses from the books of the prophets Zechariah and Nahum and are written in Greek, were retrieved from the Cave of

Horror in the Judean Desert reserve’s Nahal Hever by clinging to ropes between heaven and earth. The cave, roughly 80 meters below the cliff top, is flanked by gorges and can only be reached by rappelling precariously down the sheer cliff. Warning: The National Parks Authority prohibits any attempted entrance to the cave due to risk of accident.
Additional finds left behind by the Jewish rebels who fled to the caves at the end of the Bar Kokhba Revolt include a cache of coins from the Revolt bearing Jewish symbols such as a harp and a date palm, arrow- and spear-heads, woven fabric, sandals and even lice combs.

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