(ANSA) - TEL AVIV, MARCH 16 - Known for its absolute drought, the Judean desert has returned to a team of Israeli scholars priceless treasures kept for millennia in its caves, a short distance from Masada and the Dead Sea.
In the so-called 'Cave of Horror' fragments of biblical scrolls of two thousand years ago taken from the Book of the minor prophets have been found.
Very close have been recovered letters from the Jewish leader Shimon Bar Cochbà, who rebelled against the Emperor Adriano in 132 AD.
There are also coins of the time, a wooden comb (with the millenary remains of a louse) and the intact sole of a sandal worn by a Jewish child of rioters.
And yet, outside the 'Cave of Horror', the hummified skeleton of a girl who lived 6,000 years ago.
The desert has also preserved a 10,000-year-old basket intact.
At the origin of these exceptional discoveries, the Israeli Department of Antiquities explained, there was the decision in 2017 to systematically plumb 400 caves in the area - in a total area of 80 kilometers - to recover the possible, after they had been abandoned to the mercy of thieves of artifacts.
It was a complex and risky logistic operation because most of the grottos overlook rocky spurs and access is only possible using ropes and acrobatics.
The use of drones has also proved useful.
The 'Grotta dell'Orrore' owes its name to the discovery inside it, in the 1960s, of the skeletons of about thirty fighters from Bar Cochbà, who died of starvation after Roman soldiers had camped on a nearby hill to prevent them from escaping.
(HANDLE).