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Posted on 01/16/2005 5:07:32 PM PST by 1 spark
UHa professor shares ‘Secrets of the Cave of Letters'
Oct 29, 2004 - Dr. Richard Freund has spent years exploring sites throughout Israel and the Middle East, seeking ancient Jewish artifacts.
In 1999, Freund, director of the Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Hartford, led an expedition to the Cave of the Letters, a site near the Dead Sea Scrolls that had been excavated in 1960 by famed Israel archeologist Yigael Yadin. At that time, Yadin found letters from Bar Kochba, a leader of the Jewish rebellion against the Romans during the second century CE. But using advanced technology like ground and rock-penetrating radar, Freund and his group of scholars and archeologists, who came from more than ten universities around the U.S. and Israel, were able to find more discoveries. The story of the expedition is in Freund's new book, "Secrets of the Cave of Letters" which he will discuss on Wednesday, Nov. 3 as part of the GHJCC 12th Annual Book Festival. And "Ancient Refuge in the Holy Land," a documentary on the excavation, will air nationwide on NOVA on PBS (CPTV) on Nov. 23 at 8 pm. Dr. Freund recently filled the Jewish Ledger in about his expedition to the Cave of the Letters and his intriguing new book.
Q: Why did it take so long between excavations of the Cave of the Letters?
A: Most excavations never return to the place of a former excavation of another excavator, in this case, the legendary archaeologist, Yigael Yadin, unless you can prove that something was wrong or missing from the findings. There are so many places and so few people who can put together a credible and scientific expedition it is just not possible to return very often to a place that has already been excavated. They assume the questions are all answered by the original excavator (especially Yadin) and is not in need of another expedition. I had new questions and a revolutionary new theory that showed that something was dramatically missing from the way that Yadin had interpreted the cave. I noticed by reading "between the lines" that little had actually been excavated -- it had just been found. It was just too difficult to figure out where things were in this, the largest cave ever discovered in the Dead Sea area. We brought new technology and a new theory. I would never have been able to convince the Israeli government to allow us back if it was not a compelling argument.
Q: What were your findings in the Cave of the Letters?
A: Unlike Yadin who held that this was a cave used exclusively by the Bar Kochba Rebellion as a final refuge in their tragic battle against the Romans in the second century CE. I proved that the cave was in use during the most critical time in all Jewish history, the first century rebellion against the Romans that resulted in the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem and the exile of the Jews from Jerusalem. The Cave of Letters was the refuge that the priests and zealots came to as they escaped Jerusalem with the greatest treasures of the Jewish people -- the treasures of the Temple and holy books of Jerusalem… The "secrets" we discovered included new techniques, new coins, pottery that could be identified down to the location of its clay, and that Yadin had only discovered a small part of the story of this cave. Hall C, the final cave opening, (the size of a large auditorium) was where all of the secular documents of Bar Kochba and a woman named Babatha from the Bar Kochba rebellion were discovered. In Hall A, Yadin discovered ritual objects (that I think he misidentified) and a small scrap of a Psalm from the book of Psalms. Since 1961, 30 Psalm manuscripts were identified as coming from that area (and misidentified for 40 years!), making the Hall A, the large entrance hall to the Cave of Letters, a place where religious people from the first century zealot and priestly groups probably gathered. We rediscovered the Niche of Skulls that included 17 people and many of the bones were still perfectly preserved there. Today, we did a DNA study and Carbon 14
dated the bones to discover they were from two different time periods.
Q: Who is Bar Kochba and what was his role in Jewish history?
A: Bar Kochba (whose real name we now know was Bar Kosiba), who up until the discovery of the Cave of Letters was a mythic character, in the category of Abraham, Moses, and King David, was known like other biblical characters only from ancient literary accounts of his exploits. It was the discovery of letters signed by Bar Kochba that confirmed that not only was he a real person but that the literary accounts of his exploits were consistent with the type of person that emerged from his letters. It confirmed for the first and only time that ancient literary accounts of mythic characters needed to be taken seriously by archaeologists.
Q: How long did your excavation of the Cave of Letters take and what technology did you use?
A: I began my trek to the Cave of Letters at our excavations in Bethsaida, a first century city that we discovered in 1987 on the Sea of Galilee, some 100 miles to the north of the Cave of Letters. We discovered an odd ritual artifact at Bethsaida in 1996 and I found after research that it looked almost exactly like an artifact discovered in the Cave of Letters. We brought the most sophisticated ground penetrating radar and electrical resistivity tomography to map the substrata of the cave and see where people lived below the layer of rocks -- rocks weighing tons are all over the floor of the collapsing cave making it impossible to know where the finds are. We found where they were with sophisticated plotting and mapping, remote sensing, fiber optics to see under and around the rocks where we could not reach, and finally figured out a way of using high pressure machines to split the tons of rock to reach below to new finds.
Q: Your book, "Secrets of the Cave of the Letters" is being described as a "nail-biting page turner" with echoes of "The DaVinci Code." Was it your intention to write an exciting page turner as opposed to something more scholarly?
A: I am writing the scientific volumes on the Cave of Letters now with 20 collaborators and the expedition was so inspiring that I decided that I would do what Yadin also did, write a popular, exciting volume to parallel the scientific volume. What Dan Brown did in the ‘DaVinci Code" was he included ‘real' (but exaggerated) ancient information in his work of fiction to show how the ancients and medievals had to relay certain information in cryptic codes. The same type of code that DaVinci (and even earlier heterodox Christians) developed to transmit secret information to limited groups of followers is what I was able to unravel in regards to the single, greatest enigma of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Cave of Letters. Literary texts, objects and other bits of information all contributed to my unraveling a code that was sitting in front of scholars for years. It unravels the mystery of what happened to the treasures of the Temple of Jerusalem, a mystery as deep as the mystery of Dan Brown's "DaVinci Code" but in our case, important to the history of Judaism and absolutely non-fiction.
ping
Q: Your book, "Secrets of the Cave of the Letters" is being described as a "nail-biting page turner" with echoes of "The DaVinci Code." Was it your intention to write an exciting page turner as opposed to something more scholarly?
A: I am writing the scientific volumes on the Cave of Letters now with 20 collaborators and the expedition was so inspiring that I decided that I would do what Yadin also did, write a popular, exciting volume to parallel the scientific volume. What Dan Brown did in the ‘DaVinci Code" was he included ‘real' (but exaggerated) ancient information in his work of fiction to show how the ancients and medievals had to relay certain information in cryptic codes. The same type of code that DaVinci (and even earlier heterodox Christians) developed to transmit secret information to limited groups of followers is what I was able to unravel in regards to the single, greatest enigma of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Cave of Letters. Literary texts, objects and other bits of information all contributed to my unraveling a code that was sitting in front of scholars for years. It unravels the mystery of what happened to the treasures of the Temple of Jerusalem, a mystery as deep as the mystery of Dan Brown's "DaVinci Code" but in our case, important to the history of Judaism and absolutely non-fiction.
This is fascinating. Thanks for posting it.
(Just bumping in your name ... and yet wondering if ever you'll return, btw.)
Q: What were your findings in the Cave of the Letters?
A: Unlike Yadin who held that this was a cave used exclusively by the Bar Kochba Rebellion as a final refuge in their tragic battle against the Romans in the second century CE. I proved that the cave was in use during the most critical time in all Jewish history, the first century rebellion against the Romans that resulted in the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem and the exile of the Jews from Jerusalem. The Cave of Letters was the refuge that the priests and zealots came to as they escaped Jerusalem with the greatest treasures of the Jewish people -- the treasures of the Temple and holy books of Jerusalem… The "secrets" we discovered included new techniques, new coins, pottery that could be identified down to the location of its clay, and that Yadin had only discovered a small part of the story of this cave. Hall C, the final cave opening, (the size of a large auditorium) was where all of the secular documents of Bar Kochba and a woman named Babatha from the Bar Kochba rebellion were discovered. In Hall A, Yadin discovered ritual objects (that I think he misidentified) and a small scrap of a Psalm from the book of Psalms. Since 1961, 30 Psalm manuscripts were identified as coming from that area (and misidentified for 40 years!), making the Hall A, the large entrance hall to the Cave of Letters, a place where religious people from the first century zealot and priestly groups probably gathered. We rediscovered the Niche of Skulls that included 17 people and many of the bones were still perfectly preserved there. Today, we did a DNA study and Carbon 14 dated the bones to discover they were from two different time periods.
Q: Who is Bar Kochba and what was his role in Jewish history?
A: Bar Kochba (whose real name we now know was Bar Kosiba), who up until the discovery of the Cave of Letters was a mythic character, in the category of Abraham, Moses, and King David, was known like other biblical characters only from ancient literary accounts of his exploits. It was the discovery of letters signed by Bar Kochba that confirmed that not only was he a real person but that the literary accounts of his exploits were consistent with the type of person that emerged from his letters. It confirmed for the first and only time that ancient literary accounts of mythic characters needed to be taken seriously by archaeologists.
Q: How long did your excavation of the Cave of Letters take and what technology did you use?
A: I began my trek to the Cave of Letters at our excavations in Bethsaida, a first century city that we discovered in 1987 on the Sea of Galilee, some 100 miles to the north of the Cave of Letters. We discovered an odd ritual artifact at Bethsaida in 1996 and I found after research that it looked almost exactly like an artifact discovered in the Cave of Letters. We brought the most sophisticated ground penetrating radar and electrical resistivity tomography to map the substrata of the cave and see where people lived below the layer of rocks -- rocks weighing tons are all over the floor of the collapsing cave making it impossible to know where the finds are. We found where they were with sophisticated plotting and mapping, remote sensing, fiber optics to see under and around the rocks where we could not reach, and finally figured out a way of using high pressure machines to split the tons of rock to reach below to new finds.
Q: Your book, "Secrets of the Cave of the Letters" is being described as a "nail-biting page turner" with echoes of "The DaVinci Code." Was it your intention to write an exciting page turner as opposed to something more scholarly?
A: I am writing the scientific volumes on the Cave of Letters now with 20 collaborators and the expedition was so inspiring that I decided that I would do what Yadin also did, write a popular, exciting volume to parallel the scientific volume. What Dan Brown did in the ‘DaVinci Code" was he included ‘real' (but exaggerated) ancient information in his work of fiction to show how the ancients and medievals had to relay certain information in cryptic codes. The same type of code that DaVinci (and even earlier heterodox Christians) developed to transmit secret information to limited groups of followers is what I was able to unravel in regards to the single, greatest enigma of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Cave of Letters. Literary texts, objects and other bits of information all contributed to my unraveling a code that was sitting in front of scholars for years. It unravels the mystery of what happened to the treasures of the Temple of Jerusalem, a mystery as deep as the mystery of Dan Brown's "DaVinci Code" but in our case, important to the history of Judaism and absolutely non-fiction.
"The Copper Scroll"
http://www.vendyljones.org.il/copperscroll.htm
...There are four documents that describe the "hidden treasures" of the Tabernacle. These documents confirm and validate one another. They are:
1) The Copper Scroll which contains a list of the artifacts and where they were hidden.
2) A silver scroll which contains an inventory of each item and an explanation of all that was hidden with private inventory marks corresponding to the items.
3) Two marble tablets hidden at Mt. Carmel.
4) An ibex skin scroll which is an instruction manual on how to re-institute the service of the Holy Temple once these hidden treasures have been found...
Nonsense.
Thanks so much for the link. I've barely touched the surface of it...but I can tell it is absolutely fascinating. Even the links are good! I am saving it for continued reading. God Bless Vendyl Jones and his work! Again, thank you.
Ping!
Thanks. Sounds like a worthy volume, for sure!
Much appreciate the ping.
This topic was posted , thanks 1 spark.
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