Paul Calvert spoke with archaeologist Dr Oren Gutfeld, from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Dr Oren Gutfeld

A twelfth cave at Qumran has been discovered. It's the first time in 60 years that a new cave with traces of scrolls has been found. The first Dead Sea Scroll was found in 1947 and although no new scrolls have yet been unearthed in this new cave, a huge amount of organic material and fragments of scrolls were excavated. Paul Calvert spoke with archaeologist Dr Oren Gutfeld, from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem about the find, its significance, history and what happens now.

Paul: How important is this discovery?

Dr Gutfeld: It's very significant, because it's the first time after 60 years that a new cave with traces for scrolls has been found. When I am saying traces, I mean seven or eight complete store jars. A few of them are Qumran store jars with their lids. Unfortunately we found them broken, but we can do some restoration to have them complete. Next to them we found cloth that used to cover the scrolls and even two stripes made of leather that tied the scrolls.

Further than that, in one of the niches in the cave I found a blockage. It was a huge rock and it was blocked to the entrance to this niche. It was put intentionally on the wall. When I took the rock out, I started to dig and I found another complete store jar and from this complete store jar, another cloth. The rolled cloth came out and again it's the first time after 60 years that a rolled cloth, unfortunately not a written scroll, but only the leather has been found.

Paul: How old is everything?

Dr Gutfeld: All this material is dated very well to the Second Temple period, probably the first century BCE, or the first century AD. Together with that we found a huge amount of organic finds, like hundreds of olive pits, date pits and even nuts or nut shells. There were a few remains of baskets and robes, which tells us that people used to live in this cave at some point and the second point is that they hid the scrolls.

Paul: When you say you found a scroll, is it the full scroll, or is it just a fragment of a scroll?

Dr Gutfeld: First of all it's a fragment. Unfortunately it's blank. We found it empty and actually we found three fragments. Unfortunately all the three are blank, or empty. Inside the cave we found two pick axes of the Bedouins from 60 years ago, which means the Bedouins were there before us and they broke the store jars and took the scrolls and what we have is only the left overs. As I said the store jars, the lids, stripes, cloths and even three leather fragments.

Paul: So some things have been stolen?

Dr Gutfeld: That is correct, but it's well known that after 1947, when the first Bedouins found the Qumran cave, number one and the first seven scrolls, they went up to Bethlehem to this antique merchant. Actually he was then a shoe merchant under the name of Kando. He encouraged them to return to the area of Qumran and look for more. Only later he realised, after he prepared for them shoes and contracts for marriage and after he understood the significance of this leather, or scrolls, he encouraged them to return to the cave and look for more. This is how the race against the Bedouin has started.

The Bedouins were working in the caves and only in 1951 archaeologists from the French school in Jerusalem and from an American school, started to dig. First of all they were in the Qumran settlement and only later on in the caves. It was a race against the Bedouin and not a very successful one, as most of the scrolls were found by the Bedouins. It was not a surprise, but it was a big disappointment that we found these pick axes, because we understood immediately that they took the scrolls, but it wasn't a big surprise, because we know that they were everywhere.

Paul: So you didn't find any text on anything?

Dr Gutfeld: That is correct. We found the material; the leather itself and everything else that connects to the scrolls like the cloth and stripes, but not written fragments unfortunately.

Paul: Now you have found a twelfth cave, does that mean that there could be many more caves out there that you haven't found yet?