a race against antiquity thieves
these archaeologists sift through caves
looking for signs of ancient life
old scrolls and parchment have been
turning up on the black market
which led the israel antiquities
authority to intensify
their operations in the judean desert
this is known as the cave of horror
named after 40 skeletons
were found here 60 years ago
and there are signs robbers have already
paid a visit
but they didn't dig deep enough
archaeologists discovered fragments of
two thousand year old biblical texts
what we found is new fragments of a
scroll that we have known before that
had been discovered
in the 1950s and early 1960s
but what we found is new parts of the
puzzle of this
rather large manuscript the manuscript
is of
a translation into greek of the
12 minor prophets from the from the
bible
the fragments are believed to have been
hidden during the ba kokbar revolt
an armed jewish uprising against rome
they weren't the only discovery
researchers found a six thousand year
old mummified skeleton of a child
coins combs and remarkably
a 10 000 year old basket thought
to be the oldest ever found
well this is by far first place
it's the most amazing thing i
encountered i i
found i've seen in my life it's kind of
huge it's
it contains about between 90 to 100
liters
and it's all intact this is
as far as we know the most biggest
intact basket oldest intact basket
that we know of archaeologists hope the
findings will lead to more
understanding of the beliefs of a little
understood jewish sect