With the aid of innovative technology, archaeologists can create microhistories – reconstructions of the lifestyles of individual people in ages past. A revealing look at Judean Desert life in the Chalcolithic era
Luck plays no small part in archaeology. True, contemporary research in that field is based on painstaking, precise work, long-term planning and complicated analyses. However, as with Napoleon’s generals, every archaeologist hopes that the goddess of fortune will smile on them in the dig. And she was definitely smiling on the archaeologists who, one morning in 1993, entered a small cave in Wadi Makkukh in the Judean Desert, not far from Jericho.
Peering between the rocks that covered the floor of the small cave, the team spotted a human skull. In the excavation carried out immediately afterward, a plaited mat was found to be covering the floor. On the mat was a skeleton wrapped in textiles, and next to it were various tools and utensils: a bow and two arrows, a wooden bowl, a coiled-straw basket, a stick, a short flint blade, long flint blade and a pair of sandals. The well-preserved objects and the presence of the bow led the excavators to hypothesize that the person was a warrior who had lived in the period of the Bar Kochba revolt (132-136 C.E.). Accordingly, they dubbed the site the “Cave of the Warrior.” But closer examination and chemical dating of the artifacts revealed that the finds were from a far earlier period: around 6,000 years ago.
The Judean Desert is a very defined area with clear boundaries. With the exception of a few oases, the region is inhospitable to agriculture and resistant to human habitation. On the rare occasions when there is rain in the area, it usually takes the form of torrential floods in rushing streams that descend from the Judean Hills with a thunderous roar. The floods, like the topographical differences of elevation in the desert – ranging from about 800 meters above sea level at the summits of the hills, to about 400 meters below sea level at the Dead Sea – make this area one of extremes: Along with deep wadis there are precipitous cliffs and impassable waterfalls.
But the Judean Desert is also chock-full of caves, crevasses and pits that enable concealment and camouflage. Teams excavating caves in the Judean Desert typically unearth finds from two archaeological periods: the Late Chalcolithic (4,500-3,900 B.C.E.) and the time of the Bar Kochba revolt. The disparity between these two eras is almost incomprehensible. That 4,000-year interval is longer than the gap between us and the period of the revolt against the Romans.
Nevertheless, the aridity of the desert, particularly in its numerous caves, has allowed for the remarkable preservation of organic finds there – so much so, that it’s sometimes impossible to discern at first glance whether an object discovered in a dig is ancient, very ancient or relatively modern. That’s also why the archaeologists who excavated the so-called Cave of the Warrior initially erred and dated the finds to an era that’s some four millennia more recent than the period to which they actually belong.
A “regular” archaeological dig will reveal artifacts, structures and soil that have accumulated over very long periods. In such digs it’s unusual to be able to identify and to understand much about a specific individual from an abundance pottery sherds, bones and remains of structures. We typically encounter the individuals themselves in their place of burial. The burials are accompanied by grave goods – objects placed next to the deceased. Some of the grave goods were used by the individual during their life; some are prepared especially for the burial in order to accompany the person being interred to the next world; and some are placed in the grave out of respect for the deceased or in order to display their family’s wealth and power.
The rare state of preservation of the findings in the Cave of the Warrior presented a singular opportunity to describe the microhistory of a lone individual. Instead of engaging with long-term processes or the history of dynasties and monarchs, here was an opportunity to understand the life of an ordinary person who lived 6,000 years ago. Even though an article describing the findings at the cave was first published in 1998, an inter-university team of Israeli researchers of which I was a member mobilized to reexamine the finds at the burial site using innovative scientific methods, which allowed them to piece together the life of the person buried in the cave. The findings were recently published in the Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies.
The person in the cave was identified as a man between 40 and 50 years of age, who was at least 160 centimeters (63 inches) tall. His sandal size was European 39-40 (8-9 USA), which is appropriate for someone of his stature. In a society in which the lifespan was about 30 years and few made it past 40, this person was undoubtedly considered old. His teeth were not healthy: He had lost his upper incisors and the abutting jaw bone, causing his lips to shrink, his cheeks to sink and his chin and nose to recede toward the mouth. He thus likely looked older than his age.
The loss of the teeth also would have made speech difficult for him, especially utterance of sounds in which the tongue rests on these teeth, such as “t” or “s.” The remaining teeth were abnormally eroded, due to the need to compensate for the loss of the incisors, and it’s likely that he found chewing to be difficult and painful.
Among the teeth that remained, there were multiple cavities. There is little likelihood of developing cavities from a diet that did not contain processed sugar; the sugar in fruit and vegetables breaks down slowly and is unable to nurture the bacteria that create dental cavities. The condition of the “warrior’s” teeth may have been due to factors dating to his childhood: Poor nutrition in the early years is liable to damage tooth enamel and weaken teeth at a later age. It’s also possible that the individual’s nutrition in adulthood was rich in carbohydrates, honey, carobs, dates or figs – another possible cause of caries.
Although the person in question evidently suffered from poor dental health, his bones were thick relative to their length, indicating that he had well-developed muscles and was physically active. The bones of his right arm and left leg were more developed than the others, an asymmetry which may have resulted from repeated use of a bow and arrow, and shows that he was right-handed. His left fibula was broken during his lifetime, apparently from a circular movement of the ankle. Because no signs of inflammation were found, it can be inferred that it was not an open wound and that the fracture had healed a few months before his death.
Carbon 14 dating of artifacts and calibration of the results led to the conclusion that the individual was interred in approximately 3760 B.C.E. That date is consistent with the Late Chalcolithic period, an era in which the subsistence economy was based on pastoralism (sheep and goat herding, usually involving a semi-nomadic lifestyle) and on agriculture involving cultivation of crops typical of the Mediterranean region (grains, lentils, orchard fruits). In the period that followed – the Early Bronze Age – agriculture exceeded pastoralism in importance.
Interment in the Chalcolithic period generally took the form of secondary burial. The body was first laid or buried in a particular place until the soft tissues decayed (primary burial), and after a few years, the bones were deposited in an ossuary or other vessel and interred in a final, permanent grave site (secondary burial). This was also the customary form of Jewish burial three or four millennia later, during the First and Second Temple periods, and is practiced to this day in certain parts of Greece.
The dung on the buried man’s sandals, the wooden bowl typically used by shepherds, the pollen grains and the deceased's thick bone structure – which shows he was physically active – all this leads us to conclude that he was a shepherd.
During our team’s research, the artifacts found next to the man in the cave were classified according to two categories: personal belongings, and items that were prepared especially for the burial. Items on which signs of use were evident or whose production was relatively simple were categorized as personal goods. Objects that had clearly not been used or whose production entailed considerable effort were categorized as grave goods – those that had been prepared for the burial (primary or secondary) and could offer little information about the deceased’s lifestyle.
The first group included the wooden bowl, the bow and arrows, the sandals, the stick, the short flint blade and the coiled basket of reeds. The second group consisted of the woven fabrics (whose production required a large investment of time, and on which no signs of use or repair were evident), and the long flint blade (rare and difficult to produce). The mat on which the interred individual lay was not classified in either group, because although it was relatively easy to produce, it was devoid of use-wear.
One of the most fascinating finds was the pair of sandals. Sandals dating to the much later Roman era had already been found in the Judean Desert, but sandals this old and well-preserved are rare. While experts’ hypotheses that humans had not walked around barefoot since the Early Stone Age are based on changes in the structure of the toe bones – clear evidence of the existence of footwear, such as this, is extremely rare.
The sandals found in the Cave of the Warrior are made from cowhide and consist of a sole and supporting pieces. In the front and back, the leather is folded in order to protect the wearer’s toes and heel. The sides are connected to each other by strips that also hold the foot. An additional strip encircles the ankle.
In contrast to their modern incarnation, these sandals are identical in shape, with no difference between right and left. Happily for us, their owner made frequent use of them, and the wear caused by his feet, particularly the heels and the big toes, is quite noticeable. As such, we can understand also which sandal is right and which is left. The wear in the left one is more pronounced. Its sole is very worn down and has a hole in it, and only one layer of cowhide remains instead of two, as in the right sandal. The latter is largely intact; its main marks of wear are in the heel area.
Sediment of some sort was stuck to the bottom part, the soles, of the sandals. Initially we thought it was mud, and that we would be able to know from further analyses where the “warrior” had tread before his death. However, tests showed that it was a substance containing a large concentration of microscopic particles called spherulites and druses. These form in the stomach of herbivores and surface afterward in their feces.
If so, we can say that the individual who was interred in the desert cave 6,000 years ago suffered from a phenomenon familiar to people who walk in Israeli fields and city streets in the 21st century: He too stepped on the dung of animals along the wayside. In the dung we identified a seed of Reseda decursiva, a plant that grows in steppes and deserts between February and May, at which time its seeds begin to fall off and disperse. On the assumption that the interred individual stepped in the dung shortly before his death, he likely died upon the advent of spring.
In another test we identified pollen grains on the basket and the sandals. Although these tiny grains, found in the stamens of flowers, are very light and can easily be blown by the wind or become attached to bees’ legs, their coating is made of one of the more durable organic substances in nature – sporopollenin – and therefore can endure for thousands of years. Because pollen varies in shape, depending on the plant, it was possible to identify the source of the granules discovered in the burial site. We found pollen that comes from plants that grow in hillier Mediterranean areas as well as those indigenous to desert environments. Accordingly, we deduced that the “warrior” spent time in both.
The bow, 1.25 meters in length, was broken in the middle, perhaps as part of a symbolic ritual of “killing,” perhaps so that it could be sent into the next world with its owner. So well-preserved was it that its center part, where the archer gripped it, was still shiny from frequent use. The bowstring was not preserved, but remnants of black, sinewy-like material at the two ends of the bow mark the places where the string was attached.
The bow itself, made from a branch, was shaped by dampening and heating. At the conclusion of the production process (which could have taken many years), a doubly convex bow was created; typically this kind of bow has a relatively short range and thus could not be used for hunting large prey or stalking animals a long distance away. Identifying the wood from which the bow was made proved difficult: It was either olive wood (which does not come from the desert) or a desert tree called Maerua crassifolia. Similar bows that were found in Egypt were produced from acacia trees, which were apparently more suitable for this purpose.
The arrows found at the site next to the bow had two parts. The foreshaft, or front part, was made of olive wood and its tip was blunt. It was connected with glue (such as resin or bitumen) and strings to the mainshaft, or rear part, which was made of common reed. Feathers were usually attached to it to help stabilize the arrow in its flight.
In earlier periods, a flint arrowhead was attached to the front part of the arrow. The one we found was a small flint flake that had been shaped to create a fine, sharp point. In the Chalcolithic period, such arrowheads became more rare and were used only by desert-dwelling communities. The truncated end of the arrows that was unearthed in the cave, together with the absence of arrowheads (despite meticulous sieving), shows that these were arrows were blunt. Such arrows travel faster but have a lower penetration force. They were likely used to hunt small, fast game, such as birds.
The bowl has a diameter of about 20 centimeters (7.8 inches) and is about 7 centimeters deep. It is not circular, but resembles a type of ceramic bowl that was common in the Chalcolithic period, known as a V-Shape Bowl. Such vessels had a variety of domestic and ritual purposes. Bowls of a similar size were found at a site called Nahal Sekher, located in the Negev, not far from Be’er Sheva, a campsite for latter-day shepherds. They used the bowls for grinding, crushing and mixing food as part of their nondomestic environment. We may surmise that the bowl in the Cave of the Warrior served the same purposes. The bowl is made of Mount Tabor oak – that is, a tree which, based on the climate then and now, does not grow in the Judean Desert. We may assume that the bowl, most likely in daily use, was made from raw materials available near the place where it was made – so we can deduce that it was not produced in the desert.
The wooden stick discovered in the cave, 105 centimeters long and about 2 centimeters in diameter, is marked with hundreds of shallow grooves. The scientists who wrote the 1998 article about the site maintained that the stick was originally part of a loom and was later reused by the interred individual as a walking cane. The wood from which it was made was identified as willow, which typically grows near bodies of water throughout the land, including the Dead Sea region.
A replica of the stick created for our research showed that willow is very suitable for use as a walking stick, as it is sturdy and flexible enough to support a person who leans on it, and is also light and supple enough not to hamper the user. The length of the one we found is consistent with the probable height of the “warrior.” The signs of usage on the wood – glossy at the thick end, the part that was held, and rough-hewn at the narrow tip that was in contact with the ground – is consistent with its use as a walking stick and a means of support.
The straw basket we found is interesting precisely because of the way it was repaired. At a certain stage its coiled bottom tore and was replaced with a piece of roughly sewn-on leather. DNA analysis revealed the leather to be cowhide. Cattle need a great deal of water and grass; they were not common in the Jordan Valley during the Chalcolithic period and extremely rare in the Judean Desert. The choice to repair the basket by means of a leather patch, instead of re-coiling it, indicates that this was done somewhere where leather was available and cheap, which rules out the desert. This is additional evidence that the individual in question had connections to communities residing in hillier areas, further afield.
As noted, the mat found in situ had no readily apparent signs of usage; accordingly, even though it is an everyday object, it’s unclear whether it was part of the deceased’s belongings. Like the straw basket, the mat was made of plants that can be found throughout the region, both in the desert and in proximity to the Mediterranean.
Two flint blades were also found next to the skeleton in the cave. One was short, about 3 centimeters long, and was used as an ad hoc cutting tool, based on its typology and use marks.
The second blade, some 30 centimeters (11.8 inches) long, is a “Canaanean blade” – a type that began to be used at the end of the Chalcolithic period and became particularly prevalent in the Early Bronze Age that followed. These blades are usually found in short, truncated segments used as sickles. The long blade found in the cave is rare and probably valuable as its production was complicated and demanded knowhow, skill and special tools. It was not practical because its length made it easily breakable, and therefore, it was probably a symbolic burial offering – not an object that had been used by the deceased.
The textiles found at the site were made of linen. They included a piece that was about 7 meters long and 2 meters wide; another that was about 140 centimeters by 80 centimeters; and a third, almost 2 meters long with a width ranging from 16 to 25 centimeters. The pieces were not dyed, nor did they seem to have been used for any other purposes. It thus follows that they were prepared specially for the burial. The largest was likely a shroud, a particularly labor-intensive creation. The two smaller pieces served as a skirt and a sash. Egyptian wall paintings from later periods show that these items were worn by men in daily life. The find at the Cave of the Warrior shows that this was also the custom in the Land of Israel and in earlier eras.
Based on archaeological and anthropological studies of wooden and ceramic artifacts from all over the world, it may be assumed, again, that everyday items were typically produced from raw materials available close to their place of manufacture. Identifying the source of those materials thus helps us understand where our buried “warrior” lived. The plants and trees used in making the artifacts found at our site included those indigenous to highland areas and others found in all habitats. With one possible exception, that of the tree from which the bow was made, none of the plants or trees were (or still are) indigenous solely to the desert. The use of cowhide instead of vegetative material to repair the basket shows that cowhide was cheap and available. However, because it was unusual in the Chalcolithic period to find cows in the desert – even in oases like Jericho – we can surmise that the repair was done in a non-desert location. Based also on the pollen grains we found, the deceased can be said to have lived for lengthy periods in the hillier Mediterranean parts of the land, although his territory included the desert as well. The closest hilly area to the Judean Desert, where our site was located, is some 20 kilometers to the west of it, in what is today the West Bank. That was the shepherd’s probable place of origin.
One-person microhistory focuses on an individual and traces their life. Micro-historians try to understand that personal life story and use it to extrapolate about the lifestyle of a greater society.
To recap: The dung on the buried man’s sandals, the wooden bowl typically used by shepherds, the pollen grains and the deceased’s thick bone structure – which shows he was physically active – all this leads us to conclude that he was a shepherd whose origins lay in a community in the hilly region west of the cave.
Today, too, there are Palestinian locales located on the eastern side of the Judean and Samaria hills, on the fringes of the desert. Their inhabitants often move between different types of habitats. They cultivate crops in the hillier areas, while tending flocks of goats and sheep that roam between there and the desert. In the winter the animals are moved to the latter area, where it is warmer and vegetation can still be found; in the summer the livestock and shepherds return to the higher reaches, where they enjoy a more comfortable climate and abundant pasture land.
Back at our desert dig, the stick and the wear patterns of the sandals found at the site indicate that for a considerable period before his death, the “warrior” limped on his right foot while leaning on the stick and dragged his not fully healed broken left leg behind him. This resulted in the left sandal being worn down. On better days, the man was likely dressed in a skirt and a sash, and used a bow and arrows. He moved between hills and desert with his herds, supplementing his diet with birds he hunted. Perhaps he kept his other belongings in the coiled basket. In his night camps, he slept on a straw mat. An Egyptian wall painting from a far later period shows a person with a similar appearance. Maybe that is what the individual buried in the Cave of the Warrior looked like as a young man?
As noted earlier, the man was probably quite elderly for his time and looked old for his actual age: His teeth were missing, his mouth was shriveled and his speech was no doubt slurred. If he were indeed the “village elder,” that might be one reason for the valuable objects and considerable investment made in his burial. That investment is reflected in large pieces of textiles, whose manufacture demanded quite a bit of work, and the long flint blade. Carrying the body for burial in a distant spot also entailed a great effort.
The burial site was not chosen randomly, and many other such sites from the Chalcolithic period were found in the cliffs above the Cave of the Warrior. In contrast to our cave, they predate it by 200 to 500 years and are secondary burial sites.
The reason for the return to the desert caves for burial after a hiatus of hundreds of years and to interment conducted in a style that was not characteristic of the period (i.e., primary burial with singular grave goods) may be related to social and economic pressures in the Late Chalcolithic and the beginning of the Early Bronze Age. At this time new settlements began to appear in the highland areas, and the subsistence economy began relying more on agriculture and horticulture and less on pastoralism. This situation may have prompted the deceased’s relatives to try and roll back the changes by returning to the village’s ancient burial site and burying their kinsman there.
One-person microhistory is a burgeoning field in historical academic research. Instead of talking about large-scale processes and the chronicles of royal dynasties or famous leaders, this form of study focuses on an individual and traces their life. Micro-historians try to understand that personal life story and use it to extrapolate about the lifestyle of a greater society.
One of the best-known micro-historical studies is the book “The Cheese and the Worms” (1976). In it, Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg traces the life of a 16th-century miller through the reports of his interrogation at the hands of the Inquisition.
In a similar study, the subject of a book titled “1967: Israel, the War, and the Year that Transformed the Middle East,” Israeli historian Tom Segev writes about the period that preceded the Six-Day War, the war itself and its aftermath. The chief “protagonist” is a van driver, Yehoshua Bar-Dayan, who kept a diary during those months. Through Bar-Dayan’s recollections, Segev draws a more comprehensive picture of Israeli society – ranging from descriptions of the Formica furniture popular in local living rooms at the time, to decisions made in the bureaus of the prime minister and the chief of staff.
Micro-historical studies in archaeology are rare, because it’s not easy to find a solitary individual to examine. For the most part, archaeologists excavate entire strata containing pottery sherds, remains of structures, bones and other findings that have accumulated over decades or even centuries as part of collective human habitation, not relating solely to one person. However, there have been a few successes in this realm.
One such case also comes from the Land of Israel. In 132 C.E., when the Bar Kochba revolt against the Romans broke out, the Jewish rebels routed and seized the Roman garrison at Ein Gedi on the Dead Sea, with its valuable persimmon groves. Toward the end of the revolt, some three years later, when the Roman army returned, the residents of Ein Gedi fled to nearby caves, taking their valuable possessions with them. We may assume that they wanted to avoid the orgy of destruction, pillage and murder that accompanies the conquest by an occupying army, and hoped to return home once order was restored.
Some of them apparently succeeded in doing that, but others, such as those who fled about five kilometers away to what are known today as the “Cave of Letters” and the “Cave of Horror,” never saw Ein Gedi again. The Romans besieged the caves; it’s possible they didn’t even try to enter them by force, but simply waited for those inside to die of starvation. Inside the caves – which were discovered, surveyed and excavated in the 1950s and early ‘60s by archaeologists including Yohanan Aharoni and Yigael Yadin – were the bones of those who had fled and some of their personal belongings.
Babatha, a woman who lived in the Dead Sea area during the period of the Bar Kochba revolt, was among those who took refuge in what is now known as the Cave of Letters, where she also probably died. We know her name, because she took personal documents with her to the cave. The legal papers in this collection reveal that Babatha was the daughter of affluent parents and was twice widowed. She had one son from her first husband. The collection includes a ketubah, inheritance papers and documents about legal proceedings concerning the rights of her son (who is referred to as “the orphan”).
According to the documents, Babatha resided in a settlement called Mahoza and subsequently moved to Ein Gedi, apparently in order to live with her second husband. The papers also reveal that Babatha, although from a high social class, was illiterate, and thus someone else wrote out her claims for her. Still, it emerges that she did not hesitate to fight for her rights, and also was successful in obtaining them. These included support for her son, a title to residences, date groves and rights to water for irrigation purposes.
The people who fled to the cave during the revolt hid the items they took with them in cracks in the walls and floor, sometimes concealing them with rocks. Next to Babatha’s papers, other documents were found that are apparently connected to someone else, together with objects such as a mirror, kitchen knives, wooden dishes, an imported wooden box, a metal frying pan, a pair of sandals and linen threads bundled up in balls that were kept in leather sachets. Elsewhere in the Cave of Letters, another mirror was found, along with pieces of fabric, a set of imported glass dishes and keys of various sizes.
From these findings one can glean some understanding of what life was like in ancient Ein Gedi and what happened there when the Roman army arrived. There seem to have been quite a few people in the community who made a good living from growing balsam and could afford imported housewares and clothing made from dyed fabrics. The people in Ein Gedi lived in a remote area, but kept in touch with the other communities in the Dead Sea region and with the outside world. In contrast to old Hollywood movies that show people of antiquity dressed in white or muted colors, the people of Ein Gedi wore colorful clothes.
When the Roman army drew near, Babatha, perhaps with her son, fled to a dark and dusty cave. Judean Desert caves are completely dry; every step inside them raises clouds of dust and they are filled with the urine and feces of bats. Based on the experience of excavating such sites, spending time there makes a healthy person feel sick. We can thus deduce that cave life was not pleasurable for the ostensibly well-off residents of Ein Gedi.
Excavations at Ein Gedi show the continued existence of that community after the Bar Kochba revolt. Because the dead in the Cave of the Letters were also interred there (that is, someone collected their bones and put them in baskets in that same cave), it may be assumed that some of the Jews who had lived in Ein Gedi and fled to different hiding places, survived. Babatha apparently gambled when escaping to the wrong hiding place.
The microhistories mentioned so far are exceptions – especially in archaeology, as noted. On the other hand, there are no few cases in which it’s possible to get a brief snapshot, as opposed to a more comprehensive microhistory, of the life of our forebears. That happened on a hike I went on a few years ago to Negev mountains, during which I stopped to sit on a comfortable rock on the top of a hill. Scattered around were flakes of flint that were produced from a single nodule. I could imagine the stone knappers of yore choosing their place exactly like me – a comfortable spot with a long-distance view. While they waited, perhaps, for prey to appear, they fashioned some tools for themselves. Judging by the flakes, I figured the stone knapper lived in the Epi-Paleolithic period – between 23,000 and 11,500 years ago.
A similar example emerged from the excavation conducted by Prof. Naama Goren-Inbar, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, at the Benot Ya’akov Bridge over the Jordan River, which straddles the border between the Galilee and the Golan Heights. In that dig, with findings that date back almost 800,000 years, the team found the skull of an elephant that had been eaten by the hominids who lived there. In order to turn the heavy skull over, the hominids used a wooden pole that was found there, preserved in wet mud on the banks of the Jordan River. Thus a small glimpse was caught of the life of Homo erectus along the river, hundreds of thousands of years before it was overtaken by sophisticated Homo sapiens.
Another peek, this time into the demise of a lone individual, involved the crucified man from Givat Hamivtar, a Jerusalem neighborhood. The site was a cemetery dating to the Second Temple period, which was excavated in 1968 by the late Vassilios Tzaferis from the Israel Department of Antiquities. As mentioned, during that era, Jews were typically interred in a cave hewn out of the rock, in secondary burials using stone ossuaries. This cave was dated to between year zero and 67 C.E.
The heel bones of one of the skeletons unearthed there, of a man between the ages of 24 and 28, had apparently been skewered by a large iron nail. He had been crucified by the Roman rulers and given a Jewish burial by his family. According to the inscription on the ossuary in which his remains were interred, his name was Yehohanan. In the same cemetery a skeleton was found of a woman aged 30 to 35, who died in childbirth: the bones of the fetus were found wedged between the bones of her pelvis.
Dr. Hai Ashkenazi is the Geoinformatics manager at the Israel Antiquities Authority. Taking part in the present research with him were Dr. D. Langgut, Prof. E. Weiss, Prof. S. Lev-Yadun, Prof. G. Kahila Bar-Gal and Prof. Y. Goren. The article in JEMAHS is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Nili Liphschitz, who contributed much to it and passed away before its publication. The Cave of the Warrior was excavated by D. Barshad and I. Shaked of the IAA, in the framework of Operation Megillah conducted by the IAA and the staff officer for archaeology in Judea and Samaria; the research was made possible through their courtesy. The findings were first published in 1998 by T. Schick et al. The researchers thank T. Schick, D. Barshad, Prof. P. Smith, V. Epstein, I. Ben-Ezra, Dr. H. May from the Dan David Center for Human Evolution and Biohistory Research, and Dr. N. Sukenik and Dr. O. Shamir for their help on the article. The Cave of Letters was excavated by Prof. Y. Yadin of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
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