For years the first antiquities robbers came to the caves of the Judean Desert and robbed the treasures of the Jewish people, until the wheel turned • How was the antiquities robbery prevention unit set up?
"We received information from an assistant about a hidden scroll. It turned out that it was a scroll of Leviticus."
Filtering findings in the Cave of Horror
Photo:
Photo: Eitan Klein, Israel Antiquities Authority
The blinding glare of the sky;
The birds of prey hovering in silence and the wild canals roaming the arid, yellow soil do not hint at the drama that has taken place in recent years in the mysterious caves of the Judean Desert.
Dozens of remains of "hidden scrolls" and papyrus from the days of the Bar Kochba revolt, which were rescued from these caves last year - and gained first publicity only this week - are the final chapter in the battle story of the "hidden scrolls" between archaeologists and antiquities robbers.
Sixty years after the pioneer of cave surveyors in the Judean Desert, Prof. Yochanan Aharoni, unveiled the Thirteenth Scroll in Greek, in the Cave of Horror in Nahal Hever, the tracking of the antiquities robbers led to the very same cave.
It gained its name after 40 skeletons of refugees from the days of the Bar Kochba revolt were discovered in it, who sought refuge within it, as well as three potsherds with the names of three of the deceased.
At the top of the cliff above the cave were preserved the ruins of a Roman camp that was probably used by the narrow-minded on the refugees of the revolt, before they perished in famine and thirst.
Last year the archaeologists of the Antiquities Authority returned to the Cave of Horror.
To their surprise, they discovered fragments of 2,000-year-old scrolls, complementary to those that Aharoni had unveiled there in the middle of the last century.
So far, 10 lines have been restored, some from chapter eight of the book of Zechariah, somewhat symbolic of these days: "These are the things that you will do. Speak the truth to one another.
And also verses from chapter one of the book of Nahum: "Mountains shook from it, and the hills melted and the earth carried away from it, and the world and all its inhabitants ..."
Only this week a public discovery was made, and now, for the first time, Amir Ganor, head of the Antiquities Authority , A broad sheet of the ongoing pursuit of antiquities robbers in the Judean Desert over the past 15 years.
It is this pursuit - it is now clear - that has led to many important archeological discoveries, including the latter.
It is this pursuit that also gave birth four years ago to the decision to try to change the direction of the wheel;
Get ahead of the bandits.
No longer content with capturing them.
Reach the caves before them, not after them.
For 20 years Ganor has headed the unit, and he admits today that for many years "the robbers ruled the area. Their advantage in the land was absolute. They knew every path, every fold of land, every angle of a path. For years they slid into the desert and caves from southern Hebron mountains. Like Sa'ir, Bnei Na'im, Dura or Yatta, and we largely groped for them in the dark. It drove us crazy. For years there were finds in the legal and illegal antiquities market in the country, the source of which could have been only one place - the Judean Desert, thanks to its unique climatic conditions. So good a guard of wooden vessels, fragments of scrolls and papyrus. "
At the beginning of the millennium, in 2005, interrupted the ritual that first time, when the name of Prof. Hanan Eshel late, world-renowned expert in the history and archeology of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Dead Sea Sect and the Bar Kochba revolt, has been linked to alleged violations of the Antiquities Law.
Reality only in $ 3,000
Ganor returned 15 years ago, to an affair that agitated the archeological community: "In 2004, antiquities robbers found the Book of Leviticus in a cave, in Nahal Arugot - three chapters from chapters 23-24 of the third book of the Torah, which were transcribed during the revolt Bar Kochba. "The well-known part of the story that caused a storm at the time is related to the late Eshel.
Eshel purchased the scroll from the robbers for a bargain price, $ 3,000, funded by Bar-Ilan University.
He did not report it to the Antiquities Authority and was almost prosecuted as a result.
But the lesser-known part concerns the way in which members of the Antiquities Robbery Prevention Unit traced the incarnations of the same scroll.
"One day," Ganor recalls, "we received an auxiliary news item about a hidden scroll from the Judean Desert. In retrospect, it turned out that it was the Book of Leviticus - which was circulating in the market. Later we also received a photo of it. To catch it, lay a hand on it and reach the people who hold it. And for the buyers, we decide to put on a 'show' and operate a band of our own bandits, a mixed group of Jews and Arabs, who impersonate antiquities robbers.
"We equipped them with an old jeep, metal detectors and excavation tools.
We made them part of the human landscape in the area.
Every week our squad members asked the Harshaida tribe to guard their jeep.
Thus, for three months, our 'bandits' would hand over the jeep to the Bedouin, take out the 'robbery tools', say goodbye to them and go out in search of antiquities.
Harshida did not buy it, until we coordinated, in coordination with the IDF, a military patrol, which passed near us, which included our quick experience and hiding. Only then were they convinced that we were robbers like them, and even initiated cooperation with us. We bought their trust, joined them. "We first heard about the Book of Leviticus, where it was found, to whom it was given and to whom it was sold. At the end of this operation, we arrested three antiquities robbers, members of the Dafallah family, from the Rashida tribe, and Prof. Eshel, the purchaser of the Book of Leviticus, handed it over to us."
Four years later, in 2009, the unit received information from two sources regarding another rare document, the papyrus that would later be identified as the "4th year papyrus for the destruction of Israel";
A legal document of a widow arguing over her property with others.
This papyrus was probably written in 140 AD, at the end of the Bar Kochba revolt, after the destruction of the rural settlement in Judea.
These are 15 lines, which mention, among other things, the names of three ancient Jewish towns in the southern Hebron Mountains (Beit Amar, Upper Enav and Horbat Aristobulia), real evidence that the Jewish settlement there continued to exist even after the revolt.
The tip of the iceberg for Ganor and his men was this time members of a squad of robbers, residents of the village of Sa'ir, members of the Jardat, Almatur and Shelda families, who were operating at the time in the Skulls Cave in Nahal Tselim.
The robbers, it turned out, offered the 4th year papyrus for sale through Christian brokers from Bethlehem.
This time the unit members impersonated the buyers, competing with real buyers, antique dealers and professors from the academy, who expressed a scientific interest in the item.
The imaginary buyers became, for that matter, the representatives of an American collector, who showed great eagerness to purchase the Papyrus in the year 4. Moti Adrei (now Tanz and South Smaz) is cast as the collector's representative in Israel.
Time and time again meetings were scheduled, which the mediators were supposed to attend together with the papyrus, but each time something else went wrong.
Training at the Fajr House
The decisive, successful meeting finally took place in a room at the Hyatt Hotel on French Hill in Jerusalem.
The collector's representative arrived there carrying a suitcase containing $ 2 million (fake money), the cost of the papyrus.
The realtors brought with them to the meeting the rare item.
They were arrested immediately.
Later, in 2016, rescue excavations conducted in the Cave of the Skulls - which Jews also tried at the end of the Bar Kochba revolt - revealed small pieces of papyrus with the same inscription as the papyrus inscription in the year 4. It is not impossible, the researchers believe, that he also came from the same cave.
As the unit's operations increased, it became clear that the antiquities robbers were also becoming more sophisticated.
"Squad members," Ganor reveals, "were assisted by advanced surfing and climbing equipment and sophisticated metal detection equipment. The robbers improved their skills in cliff surfing as part of their work at quarries in the Beit Fajar area."
Ganor says that the robbers "drilled and blasted rocks in the quarry walls there. They also used previous academic publications about the extensive archeological activity that took place in the Judean Desert in the 1960s, and they also used maps and plans published as part of these studies."
Gradually, the members of the unit deepened their acquaintance with the area and deciphered the relationship between the Bedouin of the Tamara, Harshida and Ka'abna tribes and the exciting and pleasant band of robbers from the southern Hebron Mountains and the division of the area between them.
In April 2013, the unit's intelligence source presented Ganor with the wine harp papyrus (Jerusalem papyrus), after he paid tens of thousands of dollars for it.
In the papyrus from the seventh century BC, six words in ancient Hebrew script were immediately identified: "Dead.
the king.
From her girl.
Villains.
wine.
It was one of the oldest and most exciting documents ever discovered - the first archeological find from the biblical period - outside the biblical books - that was uncovered in the Land of Israel and mentioned Jerusalem by name; Papyrus Robbery Year 4. The Israel Antiquities Authority has decided at this stage to harness the police rescue units - Ein Gedi, Arad and Megilot - which are skilled in operating in the terrain conditions of the Judean Desert, as well as the War - the Center for Cave Research.
Entering a crime family in
May of that year set off on "Operation Eagle."
His immediate goals were to try to locate the cave from which the Jerusalem Papyrus Certificate (the harp of the wine papyrus) was robbed, but also to map the caves in the Judean Desert where biblical finds were discovered and to thicken the auxiliary array to better cover the area.
"In mid-2013," Ganor says, "we went back to our familiar method, connecting with the bandits. Introducing more people into their ranks and also impersonating merchants. It always requires a good cover story for the source. It's a bit like getting into a crime family. You can recruit someone from the crime family. Herself, or make the crime family want to work with your agent.
"This time it took almost two years, but we managed to infiltrate another link of the exciting clan.
We ran around with the bandits in the desert, we became part of them.
It's not easy.
You must provide a security envelope for your agent.
A small mistake that makes him suspicious - and he burns.
There were at least three crews watching his activities from near and far, within minutes of getting there.
"" Sometimes, "Ganor reveals," we were able to create control over what the robbers take out of the caves by purchasing the items.
In other cases, we went into the caves after the robbers, to understand the area and explore it. "The
turning point occurred in the summer of 2013:" One June night we received a report from the Arad rescue unit about Palestinians stuck on a cliff in Nahal Arugot, near the Peres Cave.
We immediately reached the area.
We identified ourselves as the police, not as an antiquities authority.
The rescue unit took them off the cliff and we interrogated them.
We took details, identification cards, and during a search of their vehicle we discovered sieves, excavation tools, flashlights and cocoons.
It was bingo.
But already in the field I decided to release them.
From that moment on they became our leaders, and suspected nothing.
For them, the Jews were the suckers, who rescued them without understanding who they were.
This happened
for months, until one Saturday in November 2014, just by chance, the circle closed. "
This happened during a training session conducted by the Arad Rescue Unit. One of the members of the unit, Uzi Rothstein, tried a new zoom camera, aimed it at caves in the area and suddenly caught two figures at the entrance. The Cave of the Skulls on the north bank of Nahal Tselim. One of them held a metal detector. Rothstein passed the pictures to Ganor, and all the members of the unit jumped to the top of the cliff, 80 meters above the entrance to the cave.
"We settled there.
We told ourselves that even if it takes three days, it's the only way out.
At one point, when they realized they had been hit, one of the robbers tried to glide down, fell off the rope and crashed.
His friends pulled him back to them.
In the end, they had no choice.
They climbed up in the last light.
We caught six, with all their equipment.
Two of the six were those rescued from the cliff in the flowerbeds.
For us it was a great success.
Although the robbers made sure to leave most of what they found there in the cave, they were not careful enough, and an arrowhead from about 9,000 years ago and an ancient lice comb were caught in their tools.
That was enough to put them in jail for 18 months.
"After their capture we went into the Cave of the Skulls and realized that the wine harp papyrus (Jerusalem papyrus) did not come out of there, but those were turning days."
In those days, a new CEO, Israel Hasson, a retired GSS man who challenged Ganor and his men, arrived at the Israel Antiquities Authority.
The Cave of the Skulls was excavated by hundreds of volunteers.
The land was generous.
It contained many finds: a treasure trove of jewelry and beads from the Chalcolithic period (about 6,000 years ago), other finds from the period of the Bar Kochba revolt and more.
One day Hasson came to the cave and was thrown into it with a rope harness.
"Inside this cave," Ganor recalls, "thrilled by the spectacle of teenagers and diggers all devoting themselves to work at the site, Hasson turns to me and asks, 'Amir, why are we coming after the robbers to these caves? Why don't we get there before them? Why don't we stop chasing after them? The mosquitoes and we'll start drying the egg? '"
120 miles of cliff
at that moment the diskette changed.
A few months later, the "Orange Unit" was established - a unit for surveying caves in the Judean Desert, which was subordinated to Ganor.
It included 11 people, including three archaeologists (Uriah Amichai, Hagai Hamer and Haim Cohen).
"We fully took the initiative into our own hands. People underwent advanced training, surfing, climbing, rescue. The Judean Desert Cave Survey project has been launched. It has been running for three years, with an annual budget of NIS 9 million - a third of us, a third of an archeology km in the Civil Administration. And a third of the National Heritage Division in the Prime Minister's Office.
"" The target threshold has risen, "says Ganor." We choose a river and dress on it.
Lift skimmers into the air.
Photographing the creek bed, marking the cave openings.
Planning an access route to each cave.
Formulate work protocols, and upload information to a computerized system, which will create an orderly database for future generations.
Anyone who comes after us will be able to click on a point on the map and get all the history and potential of the place. "In
the last three years, 120 km of cliff - 400 caves have been mapped.
12 of them were excavated.
In one of them, which robbers also visited - the Cave of Horror - dozens of pieces of 2,000-year-old hidden scrolls were unveiled for the first time in 60 years.
A cave of refuge from the days of the Bar Kochba revolt south of Qumran, where no human foot has trodden in the last 2,000 years and tools and coins, were also excavated.
In another cave in Qumran, broken scroll jars were discovered, without the scrolls.
In this case, Ganor points out, these are probably not robbers: "There were no traces. This is a mystery that we will have to offer a solution to. It is possible that Byzantine monks who roamed the Judean Desert collected the scrolls in the fifth century. Who knows? Maybe those scrolls are still in the archives of those monasteries. At Mr. Grandpa's Convent? "
"In the Qumran region, in 95% of the caves we entered, there were traces of robbery," says Ganor, "which only indicates the helplessness of the country for many years. The latest operation changed reality for the first time. We became homeowners in the Judean Desert. Our people's day, with tents and tools - the message goes.
"We have largely returned the governance in the field of antiquities to the Judean Desert area, in cooperation with the Nature Authority and the Archeology Department in the Civil Administration. I only hope that after three years, in the fourth year, the budget will allow "Continue this, because we are currently working with a very limited budget. We would not want reality to turn around again."