Dead Sea : New Discoveries in the Cave of Letters

__Dead Sea: New Discoveries in the Cave of Letters__ is a multidisciplinary study of the Cave of Letters in the Nahal Hever of the Judean desert, a site reputed for having contained the most important finds evidencing the Bar Kokhba revolt, including the cache of bronzes found buried there and the papers of Babatha, one of the few direct accounts of the context of the Bar Kokhba revolt in the second century CE. Chapters by diverse scholars report on and discuss the ramifications of the 1999–2001 expedition to the site, the first organized archaeological activity there since the expeditions at Nahal Hever by Yigal Yadin in 1960–1961. Using advanced technological methodologies alongside more "traditional" archaeological techniques, the team explored several research hypotheses. The expedition sought to determine whether the material collected in the cave could substantiate the hypothesis that the cave was a place of refuge during both the Bar Kokhba revolt and the earlier Great Revolt against the Roman Empire. The expedition also researched the viability of a relatively long-term occupation of the cave while under siege by Roman forces, questioning whether occupants would have been able to cook, sleep, etc., without severely degrading the cave environment as a viable place for human habitation. The individual chapters represent the result of analysis by scholars and scientists on different aspects of the material culture that the expedition uncovered. Cover 1 Table of Contents 7 List of Figures 9 List of Abbreviations 15 Acknowledgements 17 Foreword (Baruch A. Levine) 21 Preface (Philip Reeder / Richard A. Freund / Harry M. Jol / and Carl E. Savage) 29 Chapter One: The 1999–2001 Acknowledgements and Summary of Research at the Cave of Letters (Richard A. Freund) 33 Chapter Two: Depositional Processes and Paleoenvironmental Implications of the Cave of the Letters and Other Rift-Shoulder Deposits (Amos Frumkin) 59 Chapter Three: Overview of New Geoarchaeological Discoveries in the Cave of Letters (John (Jack) F. Shroder) 81 Chapter Four: Mapping the Cave of Letters (Philip Reeder) 101 Chapter Five: Ground Penetrating Radar Subsurface Imaging within the Cave of Letters (Harry M. Jol) 121 Chapter Six: Electrical Imaging and Metal Detection in the Cave of Letters (Paul D. Bauman) 133 Chapter Seven: Microclimatic Variations and Patterns of Cave Use at the Cave of Letters (Philip Reeder) 151 Chapter Eight: Return to Locus 57y: A Re-Examination of Some of the Bronze Artifacts from Hall A of the Cave of Letters (Richard A. Freund) 173 Chapter Nine: The Niche of Skulls in the Cave of Letters (Nicolae Roddy) 193 Chapter Ten: A First Century Occupation in the Cave of Letters? Results from the B/C Passage (Carl E. Savage) 209 Chapter Eleven: Textiles, Threads and Cordage from the Cave of Letters — 2000–2001 Excavations (Orit Shamir) 221 Chapter Twelve: The Meaning of Bar Kokhba Coins and Their Distribution (Fred Strickert) 253 Chapter Thirteen: The Date of the Psalms Scroll from the Cave of Letters (Walter C. Bouzard) 269 Chapter Fourteen: Archaeology, Museology, and Identity: The Display of the Cave of Letters Materials in the Shrine of the Book (1965–2004) (Adolfo D. Roitman) 285 Addendum 1: Dendroarchaeological Investigations at the Cave of Letters (Nili Liphschitz) 297 Addendum 2: Provenance Determination of Some Selected Pottery Shards from the Cave of Letters by Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (Jan Gunneweg / Marta Balla) 301 Addendum 3: Rock Breaking at the Cave of Letters (Shachar Argov) 307 List of Contributors 317 Index 321 The book is a multidisciplinary study of the Cave of Letters in the Nahal Hever of the Judean desert.