Jerusalem: Four Roman-era swords, their wooden and leather hilts and scabbards and steel blades, exquisitely preserved after 1900 years, have surfaced in a desert cave near the Dead Sea, the Israel Antiquities Authority said.
The cache of exceptionally intact artefacts was found about two months ago in an excavation by Israeli archaeologists and tells a story of empire and rebellion, of long-distance conquest and local insurrection.
Researchers, who published the preliminary findings in a newly released book, propose that the arms – four swords and the head of a javelin, known as a pilum – were stashed in the remote cavern by Jewish rebels during an uprising against the Roman Empire in the 130s.
The swords’ age was determined based on their typology, and have not yet undergone radiocarbon dating.
The find was part of the Judean Desert Survey by the Israeli antiquities authority, which aims to document and excavate caves near the Dead Sea and secure scrolls and other precious artefacts before looters have a chance to plunder them.
The cool, arid and stable climate of the desert caves has allowed exceptional preservation of organic remains, including hundreds of ancient parchment fragments known as the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Those Jewish texts, discovered last century and dated to the first centuries BCE and CE, contain the earliest known versions of the Hebrew Bible, as well an assortment of esoteric writings.
Read the article by Ilan Ben Zion in The Sydney Morning Herald.