Nahal Mishmar

Nahal Mishmar (Hebrew: נחל משמר; Arabic: محرس ) is a valley at the Dead Sea. It is located approximately half way between En Gedi and Masada.

In an expedition of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1960 were in Cave No. 1 three papyri found one of them in the Hebrew / Aramaic, one in Greek characters, and a third both Aramaic Greek as described. Font -testing shall be dated near the time of the Bar Kochba revolt. It probably involves, as in the Scripture finds in the Nachal Ze'elim to trade treaty texts or census lists. The cave was called Scouts ' Cave.

In a second expedition in March 1961, the archaeologists found in the same cave first on finds from the Roman period, including pieces of pottery, textiles and semi-precious stones. Then, in a large pit behind a thick rock they discovered a sensational copper hoard, which had been ignored 6000 years: a treasure of 442 items that were carefully wrapped in rush mats and is attributable to the culture of Ghassuliens. There were 429 copper objects, six consisted of hematite, one stone, one of ivory and five from hippopotamus ivory. The copper objects weighed only 140 kg for a single find a very large amount. The cave was then renamed the Cave of the Treasure.

On the basis of 14C dates of samples on the rush matting, the treasure is thus dated to about 3500 BC in the Chalcolithic period.

Many of the copper objects have been produced in complex molds from lost wax, suggesting an as yet unrecognized preliminary technical skills. The most magnificent pieces that crowns, standards, scepter and mace heads are cast from the bright, silvery copper arsenic. A high content of arsenic in the copper leads on the one hand to particularly good casting, and also leaves the metal harder. They represent one of the oldest known objects in this technology and are recognized worldwide as peak power of the Chalcolithic. And the spectacular proof of how perfectly the people in the Middle East dominated the technique of copper processing. The simpler tools (such as the flat axes ) are made of almost pure copper. Possibly originates part of the copper of these finds from the mining regions at Wadi Araba ( Timna, Faynan ).

It is thought that it was a temple treasure that had been hidden there. In Ein Gedi, a temple was excavated from this period, from which the objects could originate. However, this is only a guess.