Qumran scrolls 2017

First reported at the Jerusalem Post here, HEBREW UNIVERSITY ARCHAEOLOGISTS FIND 12TH DEAD SEA SCROLLS CAVE

Israeli archaeologists say that they have discovered a 12th cave containing ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ believed written by the Jews of the Second Temple. The peoples who left the scrolls are thought to have inhabited the area between 300 BC and 75 AD, the Hellenistic period of humanity.

Eleven caves were discovered in 1946, 1947 and 1956. Researchers reporting the latest find include Oren Gutfield of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Institute of Archaeology and Ahiad Ovadia.

Sadly, the 2017 cave was previously looted, but archaeologists found a piece of leather, pottery shards, flint blades, arrowheads, a stamp seal made of semi-precious carnelian, fragments of cloth and a string that may have bound a scroll.

A scientist noted;

“Although at the end of the day no scroll was found, and instead we ‘only’ found a piece of parchment rolled up in a jug that was being processed for writing, the findings indicate beyond any doubt that the cave contained scrolls that were stolen.”

The Qumran region is in the eastern Judaean Desert, the modern West Bank, in Israel.