Photo credit: digmountzion.uncc.edu/discoveries/

When you discover something, you want to share the news, right?

Ordinarily. But in our situation we are not able to share pictures or news of exciting discoveries on the dig. Why? 

The license for the site requires that all announcements of discoveries go through the Israeli Antiquities Authority. And, since this is an academic project, discoveries need to be analyzed and vetted by experts before being made public. This means that special discoveries often take months or years to be made public. So, it may be a while before you read about things found in this 2017 dig.

But you can get an example of the amazing discoveries being made here by going to the dig website. One of the most significant discoveries is the stone cup pictured above. It was found in 2009, broken, but with visible writing on the fragments. Professional restorers put the cup back together and the writing was analyzed. It turned out to be “inscribed with 10 lines of ancient cryptic Hebraic script – known from the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

This was a cup likely used by priests for ritual cleansing of their hands. The cryptic inscription connects the vessel to the other location know to use similar writing — the Qumran community that preserved the Dead Sea Scrolls. 

Experts are still trying to decipher the cryptic text. But to find a material connection between the Jerusalem priests and the Essenes in Qumran is amazing. 

No doubt there have been and will be more amazing discoveries that will shed light on our understanding of the ancient world.

I wish I could share them with you. Later…