Oh, Biblical archaeologists: you had me at the name the “Cave of Horror”.
Last week (March, 2021) Israel announced new findings from a series of archaeolologial digs conducted around a series of caves in the Dead Sea area. In a race against the potential looters also excavating the region, a number of fantastic discoveries were made: the world’s oldest intact basket (+10,000 years), ancient coins, and tiny parchment fragments in Greek making up some of the earliest translations of portions of the Hebrew Bible (part of the Dead Sea Scrolls ). Sadly, fascinatingly, horrifyingly, within the Cave of Horror have also been found a collection of skeletons– including the bones of children. Thus explains the name “Cave of Horror” — additionally, the name makes sense because of its remote and difficult accessibility (see photo 2).
The bones reveal that those inside the cave did not die from wounds — these people had gathered to shelter themselves away from Ancient Roman soldiers. Historians determined that these were the remains of Jewish people caught up in a revolt against Rome (132-135 CE), and probably were trying to wait out a siege but didn’t survive. The first 150 years of the Common Era was one of the most dynamic in Jewish history — producing multiple responses to Roman occupation. The ascetic Essenes, the Jesus movement, and the bellicose Zealots were all part of this era.
Although getting through my piles of grading is much safer, I’d really prefer to be excavating the Cave of Horror right now.
