Hideouts in the Wadi

Tradition is that when young David incurred the wrath of King Saul, he fled to the Wilderness of Judah, a forbidding desert badland just west of the Dead Sea. Later rebels lived for years among its dry stream beds and limestone cliffs, hiding their sacred writings in inaccessible caves. In 1947, a Bedouin shepherd boy crawled into one such cave, found the first of these writings: the famous Dead Sea Scrolls. Since then, Israeli archaeologists have watched in alarm as Bedouins haphazardly ransacked the caves for more fragments of parchment and papyrus, often sneaking across the Jordan border to rifle Israeli caves. Last week Israeli Archaeologist Yohanan Aharoni was about to start an all-out search of the remaining Israeli caves on a scholarly and scientific basis, organized with the full support of the Israeli government.

Dr. Aharoni's assault on the caves started a month ago with a reconnaissance in force. Trigger was a report that Bedouins were getting scraps of parchment out of caves in the Wadi Saiyal, a five-mile-long canyon in Israel near the Jordanian border. In a light airplane Dr. Aharoni flew close to the wadi's cliffs, taking photographs and spotting the mouths of many caves. Then he recruited 28 amateur archaeologists from tough Israeli border settlements. His expedition moved into the wilderness with a military escort to discourage Arab guerrillas.

Down the Cliffs. Dr. Aharoni put his main camp on the upland near the north side of the wadi. He sent men with walkie-talkie radios to the south side.

Watching through binoculars, they radioed instructions as their colleagues gingerly lowered archaeologists on ropes toward the black mouths of caves part way down the cliff. Says Aharoni: "It was like trying to put thread into a needle blindfolded while someone directs you over the telephone."

Most of the caves had been cleaned out by Bedouins, but Aharoni found several that they had missed. Inside, the floors were foot-deep with bird droppings and dust, which rose in choking clouds around the explorers. In one, amidst the midden, was a vulture's nest. With unliterary impartiality, the vultures had used fragments of parchment to complete the nest. On one fragment 16 verses of the Book of Exodus were written in Hebrew script that was current in Jerusalem about 130 A.D. This and other evidence convinced Israeli scholars that the cave had been a refuge of last-ditch followers of the self-styled Messiah Bar Kochba, who led the Jews in a desperate three-year revolt against the Roman Empire.

Arrows for the Romans. Searching cave after cave, Dr. Aharoni and his men found many traces of the ancient refugees. Roman coins of widely separated dates suggested that a remnant of the Jewish resistance force held out for a century. From one of the caves came a woman's comb, fragments of clothing, and a piece used in chess or some similar game. In another were arrows with cane shafts, no doubt intended for use against Roman legionnaires. At each end of the wadi, Dr. Aharoni's expedition found the ruins of blockhouses built by the Romans to starve out the rebels. In one case Dr.

Aharoni found poignant evidence that the Roman strategy had succeeded: the skeletons of six people who had apparently died rather than surrender.

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