The earliest known woven basket was uncovered as part of a plethora of items recovered during a cave search in the Judean Desert.
According to the Xinhua News Agency, this old 92-liter jar was discovered in Muraba ‘at Cave and was buried in three feet of earth.
It dates back about 10,500 years, or to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Period. The top was on, and the basket was almost empty. The specific plant it’s fashioned of is unknown to experts from Israel’s Antiquities Authority (IAA), but dirt within the basket may help them identify the long-forgotten contents.
After analyzing four portions of the basket, several fascinating characteristics surfaced. According to Dr. Haim Cohen, as quoted by the Jerusalem Post, “we can already conclude that two persons weaved it, and one of them was left-handed.”
Others will dig the region if the IAA does not. The Authority decided to move in to quell thieves when signals of unrest were detected at these valuable hideaways… However, according to the Post, criminals came within a hair-raising 10 centimeters of stealing the relic!
The Judean Desert has the ideal atmosphere for storing items that might otherwise decompose. Dry circumstances are beneficial to archaeologists as well as opportunists.
Fortunately, the IAA’s efforts have resulted in some surprising findings. The most well-known of these, as recently revealed, was a collection of pieces from the Dead Sea Scrolls.
According to ABC News, the scrolls are “the first fresh scrolls discovered in archaeological digs in the desert south of Jerusalem in 60 years.”
They date from the second century and are written in Greek. They contain the words of Zechariah and Nahum, two of the 12 minor prophets. During the 1940s and 1950s, the first Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in desert caves.
According to ABC and other news sites, the shards may have ended up in the so-called “Cave of Horror” between 132 and 136 AD. This would have occurred against the backdrop of the Bar Kochba Revolt, in which Jews revolted brutally against Emperor Hadrian.
The moniker “Cave of Horror” refers to the ghastly discovery of 40 human remains in the 1960s, which was probably more spectacular than the discovery of “fresh” scrolls.
A child’s skeleton, considered to be around 6,000 years old, has recently been discovered and reported on. The corpse is thought to be that of a girl aged 6 to 12 years.
According to Science Alert, the skeleton was “naturally mummified in the dry environment of the cave, which can only be entered by climbing ropes,” and her hair, skin, and tendons were still partially intact.
The area, according to the Friends of the IAA website, is “approximately 80 meters below the cliff top, is surrounded by gorges, and can only be accessed by rappelling perilously down the high rock.” Exploring the cave, both specialists and scavengers risk their lives in their hands!
According to Xinhua, Dr. Cohen is excited by the old basket’s potential and effect on future studies. “This basket was built long before ceramics were invented,” he says, “and ceramics are archaeologists’ final language.”
Basketry, according to the Heritage Crafts Association, is “widely thought to be the oldest craft in the world” as well as “the most prevalent.” Evidence of the procedure has been discovered all around the world.