Archaeologists recently found a new cave of the Dead Sea Scrolls, heralding this as one of the most important archaeological discoveries in the last 60 years. This becomes the 12th cave of the Dead Sea Scrolls, in addition to the first 11 caves in Wadi Qumran, providing precious historical evidence about the existence of the Holy Bible.

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Past evidence of the Bible before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls was the Aleppo Codex, which is believed to be the earliest version of the Old Testament that dates back to 930 CE. The Dead Sea Scrolls cave was first accidentally discovered by a group of teenagers in the late 1940, while exploring the caves in the Judean desert. This discovery would date the Dead Sea Scrolls earlier by a thousand years, to 200 BCE.

The scientific and archaeological community have since then intensively studied these eleven caves. In this new study, researchers from the Hebrew University in Israel and Liberty University in Virginia explored this 12th cave in the Qumran.

This also marks the first time that archaeologists have found the cave however, locals might have known the existence of these ancient scrolls in these caves, revealing some clues about the missing Dead Sea Scrolls. Excavations on the site uncovered 2nd century BCE jars and lids that were supposedly used for storage, however they were all broken with the contents missing. Researchers also found some iron pick axe heads dating back to the 1950s, revealing evidence that the cave was susceptible to looting.

According to archaeologist Oren Gutfeld from the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, to this day, no scroll was found. Instead, we only found a piece of parchment rolled up inside a jug which have been processed to decipher the writing.

Where are the scrolls from this 12th cave now? According to the director general of Israel's Antiquities Authority, we are now in the race against time where thieves steal antiquities, artifacts and heritage for financial gain.

Gutfeld explains, our new findings indicate that without a doubt, this cave contained the scrolls that were stolen. Furthermore, the jars in which the scrolls are hidden along with their covering also contain a leather strap for binding, a cloth that was wrapping these scrolls, including tendons and skin fragments to connect these parts and many more.