Dead Sea Caves: New Archaeological Discoveries

good evening everyone thanks for coming out this evening for a talk to be delivered by Professor Oren Gutfeld on the dead sea caves new archeological discoveries for those of you who are interested and available tomorrow morning dr. good Feld will also be speaking on excavating and rebuilding ruins in Jerusalem's Jewish quarter if you haven't registered for tomorrow's lecture we do have room but please let us know before you leave this evening I'm gonna introduce our speaker in a minute but want to just provide you with a few introductory notes on some of our upcoming programs first of all some of you might have seen we're really excited that we're gonna have the author David Grossman here in April from Israel he just won the Man Booker Prize and we're so happy that we've secured his visit here so make sure you save the date for that appearance oh it's April 9th write it down and he's gonna be speaking at the most Performing Arts Center we have also coming up our East Side conversations which is a monthly lunch program that we have this month we have this Friday actually Rabbi Richard Bloch speaking on the changing Jewish landscape reflections on a career in the rabbinate he'll be speaking on and I also want to draw your attention with the ever rising crisis on substance abuse the opioid academic epidemic we have a regular substance abuse program here and our upcoming one is where are you Cheryl is Thursday November 9th in November 16th this Thursday and we're actually gonna be having the mayor's mayor Merle Gordon of beechwood and Mayor Cathy he's still mayor and and the mayor of orange village and the mayor of Lyndhurst who will be here speaking about the crisis at the local level that again is on Thursday this Thursday evening and with that I just want to let you know that this evenings lecture were really grateful to the generous support that we receive from the Rena and Samuel M Franco fund of the Lauren Alvin Segal College of Judaic Studies educational fund that's held at the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland we're very grateful for the support for this lecture and for all of our generous donors and helping to support our program with that I'm going to welcome Oren Gutfeld who received his MA and his PhD in classical anthropology from classical archaeology from Hebrew University he serves as the excavation director on behalf of Hebrew University at a number of active archaeological sites including Beit Lehi at the Hurva synagogue in Jerusalem's Jewish quarter at now housed caja in the Judean Desert and at the Dead Sea Scrolls cave 12 in Qumran which he's going to be speaking about this evening Oren has also done other archaeological work at Jericho Masada Herodium and suppori and he's held research fellowships at the Ben's V Institute in Jerusalem at the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan and as a lady Davis Fellow at Hebrew University he has an extensive list of publications and public appearances and he's in from Israel he just arrived last night actually and we're so happy that on your tour in the United States this time that you made your way to Cleveland so thanks very much for coming please give up [Applause] thank you very much Alana for inviting me and to be here this evening tonight I would like to tell you a very nice story actually about fun things that I'm doing over there in Israel and especially around the northern part of the Judean Desert can you all hear me okay and the northern part of the Judean Desert and specifically tonight about a new cave that I recently discovered not far away from Qumran on the shore of the Dead Sea as you can see on the first slides but before I'm studying few words regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls well the dets is called the first Dead Sea scroll were found will not show either in 1946 or 1947 it's very hard with the Bedouin and I'm going to return to this later because they are telling many many stories and you know the official story about Mohammed the wolf a deep who was chasing a goat that was lost in the caves of Qumran and he entered he saw two she's won in one of the caves and he saw a stone inside and he heard something strange walking so he went away to detain that both his family and they all went down to two cave later released his cave number one and they entered the cave they were climbing and there are some entrances and many many stories and they found more than two dozen complete storage jars some of them are complete with the lid on top and they opened them and found of course they didn't know what it is but they found a lot of leather over there and they took it to the tent and they left it in the tent some say is for a few months some says for years some says for two years they didn't know what to do with it then they said well there's a shoe deal err shoemaker in in Bethlehem under the name of East candle candle so maybe we'll go to Bethlehem we'll give him the those piece of leather and maybe we'll give us something and they did and they went to Bethlehem and gave the the shoe they did the leather - this is Kenda he didn't know what it is as well and he started to prepare shoes from the schools for years and then he saw that there's some strange riding on one side of the leather and said well maybe I should write a marriage contract on the reverse on the other side and he did okay so some Muslims were married with and she that is called a marriage contract until one day someone came to is a this is by the way a Lilly scandal can do who become very very rich person and now we own their antique shop in Bethlehem not him but his son and grandchild in Bethlehem in London and in New York and one day Orthodox malabar a moose came to visit him and he saw this course and he knew he was the first one to understand what are these pieces of leather that this can do hold and urge him asked him to to bring more so this is how the Dead Sea scores has found or the story of the Dead Sea scroll started then of course the minute a condo who was very very clever guy understood what he has well he sent the Bedouin asked the Bedouin to return to the caves and bring him more and they did and then he started to pay them according to the pieces that they are bringing so the Bedouin their wise as well they bought first the score to determine the next thing they did is they cut them into small pieces and sell it they sold it to this can do by pieces so this is how the debt is school yes it's it's lunatic I know because it started in 1946 1949 suddenly by early 50s the the market in Jerusalem Bethlehem in highborn also in New York was full of pieces of fragments parchments of Dead Sea Scrolls and then is when Ellis Oliver sukenik the one of the first Jewish archaeologists or that was even before the State of Israel was established and the father of agalya didn't professor a Galia Dean the chief of staff of these and Defense Forces when he bought the first seven schools in 1948 949 it was already 1947 but it was delayed because of the declaration of the State of Israel but in 1949 Israel had already the first seven Dead Sea scores and it's interesting because only 1951 when more and more scores arrived to the markets then the Judean Ian's who were occupied this area the northern part of the Dead Sea and the the Judean Desert they asked father for lambda for form the occult Biblical Archaeology from the French school of archaeology in Jerusalem to start an excavation in the area and to find it more scientifically and he did but unfortunately he started his except excavations in Qumran while all the dead sea scrolls were found on the cliffs on caves and whoever had documentary that for example he was working in come on have you been in come on some of you I'm sure so at least some of you were in in come on Boeing site really Boeing site without the scores not even one bus would have stopped over there okay we have much better sites in Israel but because of the story of the scores and we know that professor de veau a father Devore he started excavation at the site at the settlement of Qumran and on the same days that he was working at the side the Bedouin were looting the caves in front of his eyes especially in CAFO which is really few meters away from the settlement where they found the Ganesa the archive of the skulls do you know how many fragments of scores were found in cave fall say a number thousands how many thousands fifteen thousands were found in this Ganesa in the archive and further divorce cribes the Bedouin walking like this because they all their clothes are full of parchments of small piece of dead sea squad but they were still digging in come on unfortunately and we'll return to that who are the Dead Sea Scrolls where there are two main theories one is the traditional theory that they sense the Dead Sea cult won't set over there in command for more than 200 years and old copies of the Bible of the books of the Maccabees Jewish litter is different Jewish literary books commentaries to the Bible everything that you can think of but there's more there are some squads that goes that doesn't go with a sense way of thinking like the temples for their sins were against the temple against the satellites the priests and the high priest in Jerusalem so for sure they didn't write the temples world so how come that is temple the complete scroll of the temple that describes the temple the measurements of the temple the way of the sacrifice how he should sacrifice everything that connects to the temple is over there so for sure not they censor what it another theory is that the Dead Sea Scrolls is actually the library that were in that was in the temple in Jerusalem that were hidden on the cliffs of Qumran before the Roman invasion to Jerusalem II did the at the time of the great revolt 66-67 see II that goes also with the story of the copper scroll which was found in cave 3 which was not written on parchment on a letter and it's inscribed on 99% pure copper that tells us about 64 stations were a huge amount of treasures were hidden in the Judean Desert there's only one how do you say what no there's only one Institute who can held so much amount of treasures and this is the temple in Jerusalem so if thing about both of them it makes a little bit more sense but let's go back to the excavation in come on so in 1951 volunteer for for the wall and over an American archaeologist Lancaster Hardeen from the American school of archaeology in Jerusalem studied the excavation in c'mon Plateau this is a the area that they discovered the the settlement the community we still believe that this is the place of the community the Dead Sea community or the sin as we know from Josephus Flavius new assessment material the Jewish woman historian who describes the Essenes as a small cult that lived on the Dead Sea and had their own traditions and this is already my excavations a photograph that no yellow aerial photo that they took in 2006 so you see the this blank area over here this is the area where I conducted an excavation between 2002 and 2012 I'll tell you a secret the reason I got the permit to dig over there is because the government thought that there is nothing over there the director of this Allen ticket is the thought he looked at this in my eyes said why do you want to dig there it's outside of the settlement look at the plateau it's empty there's nothing so I told him so why don't you why do you care give me the permit and then dig for nothing he gave me and of course I didn't dig for nothing very little architecture that's true but a lot of pottery including this complete you see over there oh my god believe me that was really exciting to find a lead okay from above of course I didn't pull it up although I wanted very much said no no you have to make it wider and then I saw that it covers a storage are a complete storage ah income one you know what's the meaning of that that it's empty this is the meaning of that this is the first time I bought from Hebrew University the Scholl kit okay and we didn't use it and everything was ready we took off the lead and it was empty we took her ways to do a analysis for the residue white wine very interesting but together with that this is what was found over there but the story over there goes with 56 bone deposits what's bone deposits its bones animal kosher bones of course and by the way not all the parts of the animal for example heads we'd invite any heads over there of three cows and many many most of it our sheep and goat and three doves okay very interesting that were buried for some reason that is not clear until today in storage jars or cooking pots about half a meter before a below surface sometimes we found the bones inside the pottery sometimes we found only two pottery sometimes only the bones but mainly all together and it's very very interesting and when I started to analysis the bones over there I had two thesis one that I believed in and one that I don't believe it at all but I need to check it the first one is that the bones were deposited over there because of the communal meal of these sins which means that the bones maybe were sacrificed the animal was sacrificed in the temple in Jerusalem and were brought to the community to eat in communal meal in purity of course and then they didn't think that they should throw the bones to divide it to the hyenas and they should bury them because we know from father Dvorak's evasions that he found more than 150 more but they were lost in the 50s in the early 50s they didn't know what to do with them so it just vanished just disappeared so now it was the first time that we were able and this is the only site in Israel where bone deposits like that were found so it's really really significant the second thesis which I don't believe in is that was also before we know that we knew about the percentage of the cows and the sheep and the goats but about 15 years ago Hebrew University conducted the DNA test or analysis to the Dead Sea Scrolls and I thought to myself well we should try to produce callaghan and to check the DNA of the animals in order to find a match between if there is any between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the animals and if if we'll find a matching between the two even 1% that will be enough and that will in that will solve the question where either the Dead Sea scrolls were written in human or in Jerusalem so far without a success but only from the beginning that they didn't believe in it so that was between 2002 and 2012 in 2010 while we were still working in the Plateau we started to conduct a survey on the cliff first it was a very nice trip and to look for the caves where the Dead Sea we were found and I've noticed on this special cave that was named cave 53 according to a survey that the Antiquities Authority conducted on the cliffs in 1992 around the Oslo agreement we wasn't sure what this area what the future of this area will be so we conducted a survey emergency survey on the cliffs that was a very very fast survey and I remember that they found the cave they named it 53 but and I entered inside and I saw some pottery from Second Temple period and a piece of an ancient mattress made of palm-leaf said well maybe there's something over here maybe the the Bedouin missed something over here for should archaeologists missed it and this is not very far away from come on it's actually the first cave that we are digging south of the Qumran river with remains that goes with a settlement with the community over here we uncovered a small cemetery from Second Temple period and the cave itself is a little bit higher on the cliff so in January actually December 31st and last January we started the excavation we had to we came for two weeks and we stayed five weeks in the cave every day we had to climb all the way up to the cave we couldn't leave anything over there because of the bed ruins they were watching all the time and when it come all interesting we stayed there we couldn't leave it so this is come on and this is the view of the cave from come on no it says it our drones that were flying in the air and taking wonderful photos the cave was not really hidden so I guess this is the reason that everybody thought it's so clear there's no there's nothing nothing what to look over there because everybody were there but it wasn't - and December 31st and January 2017 we started the excavation and the best thing that they did over there is that I gave I don't want to say an order but I asked that every bucket would with fill with air fill will be sifted and it worked it worked so this is how we started the exhibition this is the excavation from the inside not so big about three by five meters with another tunnel that goes on the back of the tunnel but it was too small for me what can I do and of about two three meters that's it at the end of the excavation it appears that the tunnel goes to 15 meters that's about 45 50 feet long so we started to clean and this is a map a plan of the the cave so this is the back tunnel with a niche over here and this is the main room we couldn't see this tunnel over here we found it after we started the excavation and thank God we did and another niche over here so this is the entrance to the tunnel before the excavation lot of chunks pieces from the ceiling that fell from the ceiling to the tunnel and prevent entrance this is from the inside outside [Music] well Christy she's a little bit thinner than me so she started the excavational half way there and opened the tunnel for us and this is me with my assistant Ashley adovada who just finished his MA at the Hebrew University for history on periods that called Neolithic period and I'm glad that he came to work with me because I don't understand anything in prehistoric archaeology and beneath the Second Temple period layer we found Hulka lytic and Neolithic layers two layers with beautiful finds that we're gonna see in a second so this is now you can imagine how life was to the ancient people and for us digging its site very hot although it's January it's still warm in the area of the Dead Sea very dry lots of dust every time that you've started to dig everything blows with dust it's it's not easy it's not easy so sometimes it was tools to narrow or so narrow that you have to call and to lay and to dig the opposite like that very very strange positions but it was worth almost in the back of the tunnel we started to uncover a big pieces of stowage ours and over here you see at least three stores that woken but all the pieces are there which means that now we can make a restoration and it will be complete again then while we were cleaning and pushing our hands between hawks and said to our like you see over here to pickaxes ancient pickaxes or found and I thought to myself oh my god this is this these pickaxes belongs to the Bedouin so they were the one who broke the stars in order to take something what it can be I don't know so those are the two picot says but when we took it to the laboratory first of all to the shrine of the book we saw the entrance to the shrine of the book in there is a museum that two pickaxes similar pickaxes are in the exhibit from father the workstations and the label is second temple period pixels found in the voice of Asians so today we can do some metal analysis and we will know for sure either those are belongs to the Bedouin in that case the shine of the book is mistaken we'll have to change the label after 50 60 years yes and oh by the way one and those are formed second temple period anyways it's interesting and important before I continue with what we found moreover there again a plan of the site with the necks of the areas where we found more store jars and pottery and now today cave itself after we cleaned the dust we uncovered that in the entire area of the cave this mattress this bedding made of palm leaves in the entire area of the the cave which means that it was used in the Second Temple period for at least sleeping if not for living usually they didn't live in the caves but perhaps they used them for one night or for few nights when they came to the cave for some reason but we didn't find any cooking words which means that they didn't cook over there or any other installations of what they were doing over there so my theory is that they came from come on or from other place came to the cave stored the storages that some of them use usually so on waiting and from time to time they came to the cave and left and cetera we didn't find any coins over there and not cooking words not kitchen words okay so we started the excavation with the help of my good friend use of agua maria is from the Tommo i that tamara is the tribe who was the first to found to find the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1946 1947 so it was great that he worked with us because they have since and he told me that look on the corner on the niche there is a niche over there there is a big walk and I told him yes it fell from the ceiling he told me no no no we have to break it to take it out at all him Youssef we're here for two weeks leave it that's clear let's go home enough now and he was insist and he started to break it slowly slowly and after two days he showed me look the stone was not just there he didn't fell by an accident it was put in purpose on a wall and then I looked and there was a wall beneath this walk but which means that someone put this huge oak over there in order to hide things behind it so we started the excavation over there another tunnel I love tunnels and we're starting to dig suddenly a lead cover made of pottery complete almost complete complete from archaeological point of view which means that we can glue it and it will be complete again continuing the excavation suddenly pieces of stowage are not a regular stowage on this special Qumran storage our school job that we call and more and in total eight stores the three of them are Qumran scourges and more and suddenly I'm looking at I couldn't believe you see a walled parchment for more than 60 years no one found a world parchment so I'm calling a Fiat Fiat very very exciting bring the debt is called kids this time we're going to use it you know that was one of my best sentences that I ever said here it is from clothes of course you're not allowed to touch it on bare hands you're not allowed to breathes on it everything is ready open and it's ready in in the order that you should take it from the gun and put it in the box and how to treat it and and over here you can see how how happy I am I was them and we took the kids and we folded it and we ran away to the cars and straight to the Scholl Laboratory of diesel Antiquities Authority in the Israel Museum and we'll return to this call in few minutes and few more jaw fragment that were collected over there remember that I told you that I asked to sift everything because we sifted everything we have we found more than 450 bags of organic material that we're going to see in a second but on the right you can see another piece that was found while we're sifting and I have to tell you the skull or the parchment is clear it's a letter not over here some very strange material that I was not aware of fabulous papyrus so we have one perch mint and one papyrus again more than 60 years that no one found things like that and this is already on the left photograph is scanning after the score laboratory open it in Jerusalem and immediately you can see that it's blank so now in my Mille a I know for two things the first archaeologist after 60s that found approachment and the first archaeologists who found a blank fruits nuts and believe me this evening is easy on Thursday I'm going to present it in one of the important archaeological conferences in Boston yes there will be how there yes that's the reason that the beginning I was happy and no no I'm still happy but yes we don't know it's blank but together with other stuff that we found in together with the dispatch mint we believe that the cave was a Scholl cave and at least I mean seven or eight storage jars were found over there which means that there were scores over there that were looted the question by whom either the Bedouins or maybe even earlier maybe in the early Islamic period when early monks came from Jericho and we're walking on the cliffs and we have a letter at least one letter that among other dis and ER the name of Timothy writing to his archbishop in Jerusalem that he in the area of the Dead Sea ancient Bible books or scores so either it goes all the way to the early Islamic period oh it's either the bed winds can be the bed winds as well this is my office in the field I fold the table and where we register all the finds and this is the area while we're sifting dust in the air but very very nice and very important so we take every bucket we pull it into the sifter and we're making lots of dust and at the end this is what we find small pieces of leather or textiles over there you see it's a piece of textile and why textile is important because we know already form candle and from the bed winds that they used in the Second Temple period tore up the squad's weight textiles in order to keep them to preserve them and even to tie them with the leather stripes we found more than 15 fragments or pieces of textiles in the cave and at least two stripes of leather and a lot of organic material like hundreds of olive pits dozen of date pits different kind of seeds and this is the textile lining or fingers and that's before cleaning few more examples hopes baskets textiles fabrics very very rich cave is very rich cave but the most important thing that all these finds goes together with the schools those are all the accessories of the schools and this is the reason I in an article that I wrote and published I suggested that K 53 is should be called cave 12 and why Q 12 because according to the Bedouin all the scores came from eleven caves one to eleven and for some reason the Oh scholars accepted it as you know as toamasina which is nonsense like I found the caves perhaps there is more caves over there and that's the reason we are still surveying and walking on the cliffs and looking for more caves look you see this is all came from the inside over here there's no better sample in the world for Second Temple period mattress made of palm leaves you know what it is me neither I thought maybe you know and he will tell me and over here we are k12 but I promise you also the layers beneath the second temple period so calculative calculated from the Chalcolithic period from the end of the 6th and the 5th millennium BCE a stone sill made of : Ian this is a very good red stone complete sill and Flint arrowheads under the name be blows our heads yes I'm saying that like a no no it's all for Mahad he told me everything the time and kennen i terrible bones sickle and blades really really important and nice finds the tells us about you know earlier stages of the cave in the late prehistoric period and over here pottery from the neolithic period this is the actually the first assemblages of pottery pottery was invaded on the lone neolithic period so what we see over here actually is the first pieces of Neolithic pottery that exists in some inscribed shape stone maybe ritual thing bone tools shell bed and a statement of the director-general of diesel antiquities regarding the important discovery of another school a cave it is important it is important because an one of the reason that I didn't tell you that we are there is not because in 2010 I started to walk again and survey the cliffs and I found the cave but also because in the last five to seven years more and more fragments parchments pieces of papyrus arrived to the black market in Jerusalem and Bethlehem and this is after many years that our teachers professor the university's dead don't waste your time on the cliffs the Bedouin looted everything and if not the bed way and then before and if not the vault the server in 1992 you have nothing what to look over there and suddenly those pieces arrived and two years ago perhaps you read about the Jerusalem papyrus from that was found on a search on antique looters that were digging in one of the caves and then I said that's it we have to go and search and start something big over there and now we convince the government to sponsor a serious survey for 300 caves for Masada to Qumran with activation of at least 10% of them and that was the first one so I hope that will be only the first one to come one more thing we're still I came in today 5 degrees in but we're still waiting when it comes to the desert when one this is the photograph that he took in 2000 i 556 when when you do that flash floods came in one wash on the latter left the cliff leaves one in Yui anyway to adduct form does not work work again according to the water water so thank you thank you very much for listening and if you have any questions I'll be happy to answer thank you thank you very much I'll pass make a round for questions I have read that there is Christian in interest in the caves and pieces that they are keeping secret I'm not any more erudite the neck do you know what I'm talking about mm-hmm I know very well so first of all don't be afraid okay yes so you see those and those those are Christian evangelists who are sponsoring the excavations okay someone need to sponsor that and unfortunately not the government oh now I hope with this emergency survey that they will but on your research excavation mainly Christians for their purposes and for their reasons the sponsoring the the excavations so yes they're sponsoring they have their own reasons for that but they don't keep anything not even one single pottery shard is going out of the country okay so it's everything is under control and okay well since the looters bought the debts it's caused to come due and he sold it to to private collectors or to private people also to to the church a different kind of church then yes that's - we didn't see all the fragments we didn't see all the Dead Sea Scrolls yet for example we spoke about it over dinner tonight in few months the Greenes foundation is going to open the Bible Museum in Washington DC they have their own schools they bought scores from home we don't know either those of scores that we know probably not you spoke that there you spoke at the fact that there were going to be additional surveys are you going to be able to use any of the fancy high-tech equipment to be able to see more yes and you can with the eyes yes yes thank you very much for your question yes one of the problems with a traditional survey that we conducted in the past and now is that there are many caves that were collapsed okay during the years remember this is the Dead Sea Rift okay and many many earthquakes in this area and some of the caves we know for sure that they're collapsed and we had no way to find them because we are walking on top of them so now first of all I mentioned the drones that were using that can goes instead trying to climb to the cliff to some very dangerous cave just sending it down and wave a full visual and we sit at the computer later and second why we are using GPR ground-penetrating radar and some and some other sites make things unfortunately Israel become very very professional with all this GPR and seismic because of the Hamas tunnels that goes into Israel so we're using it for civil purposes as well yes okay so if there's no more questions no ah okay sorry questions always pop up so uh I'll ask a question while the crowd gets to think of it so your professors who encouraged you discourage you from continuing the search was it sort of fatigue around dead the Dead Sea Scrolls stuff or did they or was it that they wanted you to get to other important things that were out there what was the kind of atmosphere no but you were a graduate student that most fear was that first of all the truly everything was done all the way they and second if you remember for many years we didn't know much about the Dead Sea Scrolls because there was like a group of scholars that were set for almost 30 years in clothes warm they didn't let anyone to see even what is written there and that's why many conspiracies has started regarding electricity Christianity and the church and things like that and and at some point you know we said okay let's do other things and there's enough without that but when we started we saw that it's only the beginning there's no well we have to remember yes the question was about the bones and the question of whether the sacrifices would be done in Jerusalem and then the bones brought there whereas sacrifice is done there yes well we need to remember that during the Second Temple period sacrifices were only in one place and this is the in the temple it's not like in the first Temple period where you read about the boat in Arad in Tel Dan in Battelle in other places no Second Temple period is different there's only one place where you can sacrifice sacrifices yes sir making suspicious yes well the reason was GPR and seismic analysis that we conducted over there to look for more caves and we found an at least few few anomalies for caves which become natural caves very very deep below surface but that that was the main purpose but on the way we started to find this archaeological find it which was quite a surprise for us so we continued with that yes in 1992 yes but it wasn't so successful that's why I'm mentioning that it was geological layers not in this area not in this area at all oh yes it's very good relationship I bought one example of this use of Labuan Maria was working with me 20 years now in hello diem in Jericho we used to work together in the site of metallurgy that I'm activating we do have a good relationship but this is during the day when we are digging yeah you can never know what they up to after you are leaving the cave they might return not not specifically him but others that are watching or others that are not working with us for sure you know they're trying to to come in and dig in the area when we are not there can I ask you about the find it's the things that you found themselves you really express nicely the kind of mixed emotion of sadness and not finding disappointment at not finding parchments with writing on it but then the excitement about what you did find there is the importance in your opinion is the importance of the finds that now you have more information about the people and the history or is it that now you have a sense that there's more out there both both first of all it's very very exciting to find it's someone really said that this is the most important find after 60 years and in Qumran and first of all it's the first time after 60 years that scores and papyrus were found over there that gave us hope that it's not the end and we should search search more and perhaps say even find well this time it was a blank one next time we hope we'll find something and it's not you know something in in in this kind and every research and every excavation open a new window for further thesis and research and writing and this is the important of that not to too fast like our professor wanted us and yeah wake up with something new it's the youth revolting against the elders okay well we'll take one or two more could you tell us something more about pottery do you know whether what they used to make this particular pottery came from that same area or whether it came from you know somewhere else and they and they brought it there also it looked like pretty fine it didn't look like it had some of the temp that we find you know in the United States and the Indian pottery and so forth mixed in with it it looks smoother mm-hmm well I don't know I'll start with the end I don't know what a Native American pottery you heard too but from which period a story okay so the pottery now it's quite easy with doing what we call the petrography is where taste testing the the de clay under microscope and we have a bank of clay and that tells us from where the pottery is well some of the pottery were was done in Qumran itself they had probably their own kilns okay yes and first of all they collected the the the clay on the river band and then they made the pottery vessels on on a wheel okay always only will from this period of time okay and it's local some of the pottery is what we called matzah mall which is a body a west to Jerusalem so some of the pottery was bought from the area of Jerusalem as as well what we see over here is a store jar this is a big store usually mainly for grains or wine this is not completely but this is the type of the school jar this is a cooking pot this is a lead a ball very special oil lamp cups and ritual dish this is what we call the ritual dish so this is the kind of pottery that we find over there oh you know what you're talking about Ilana I know my crowd I was ready for the coffee but okay I have nothing to how technology that you don't have better security on these sites carnival and Carter had security in the 20s why are you not able to have security well first of all they they didn't have any security and well they were excavating the settlement and next to them they were looting cave number four with 15,000 pieces of fragments while we were excavating we had some security technology security like hidden cameras with infrared that if someone is cutting it it's called your cell phone but I don't know if you know the area it's about 45 kilometers like 30 miles for Masada to come on of a very high cliff with hundreds of caves okay and that we cannot control for the Bedouin is very easy you're waiting on a donkey you're coming from above you don't need the rappelling you don't need to absolutely anything you take some dates in your pocket and you're going for the excavation or night mainly for us it's a little bit different but we're trying we're trying we're trying there's today there's a small aircraft does photos in looking we're using drones to some foul a caves this is how this looters were caught maybe I shouldn't tell that but yeah we're trying but it's a race and always the Bedouin wander race always Oren I think it's time for your coffee thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: Case Western Reserve University

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Id: 5EGPKIWb7tY

Length: 61min 8sec (3668 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 06 2017