Israeli archeologists discover ancient Dead Sea Scroll fragments

Desert cave find includes 1,900-year-old parchment fragments bearing biblical verse written in Greek.

Israeli archaeologists on Tuesday announced the discovery of dozens of Dead Sea Scroll fragments bearing a biblical text found in a desert cave and believed hidden during a Jewish revolt against Rome nearly 1,900 years ago. The finds, preserved by the hot, dry air of the Judean Desert, also include the 6,000-year-old partly mummified skeleton of a child, and a perfectly intact woven basket dating back 10,500 years that the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said was likely to be the oldest in the world. The Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of Jewish texts found in desert caves in the West Bank near Qumran in the 1940s and 50s, date from the third century BC to the first century AD. They include the earliest known copies of biblical texts and documents outlining the beliefs of a little-understood Jewish sect.