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world news Diaranson 17 Maart 2021

Israeli experts announce discovery of more Britain’s Prince Philip

Dead Sea scrolls returns home after

treatment

(AP) — Israeli archae- tiquities Authority to find far older discoveries of no
ologists on Tuesday an- scrolls and other artifacts to lesser importance found dur-
nounced the discovery of prevent possible plunder- ing its sweep of more than (AP) — Britain’s Prince Philip returned to Windsor
dozens of Dead Sea Scroll ing. Israel captured the West 500 caves in the desert: the Castle on Tuesday, following a month in the hospital
fragments bearing a bibli- Bank in the 1967 war, and in- 6,000-year-old mummified during which he was treated for an infection and un-
cal text found in a desert ternational law prohibits the skeleton of a child, an im- derwent a heart procedure.
cave and believed hidden removal of cultural property mense, complete woven bas-
during a Jewish revolt from occupied territory. The ket from the Neolithic pe- Philip, 99, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, was admitted
against Rome nearly 1,900 authority held a news confer- riod, estimated to be 10,500 to the private King Edward VII’s Hospital in London on Feb.
years ago. ence Tuesday to unveil the years old, and scores of other 16, where he was treated for an infection.
discovery. delicate organic materials He was later transferred to a specialized cardiac care unit at
The fragments of parchment preserved in caves’ arid cli- St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, before returning to King Edward
bear lines of Greek text from The fragments are believed mate. VII’s.
the books of Zechariah and to have been part of a scroll In 1961, Israeli archaeologist Photographers standing outside the door of the private hos-
Nahum and have been dat- stashed away in the cave Yohanan Aharoni excavated pital captured his departure in the back of a black car. Buck-
ed around the first century during the Bar Kochba Re- the “Cave of Horror” and ingham Palace later issued a statement confirming Philip’s
based on the writing style, volt, an armed Jewish upris- his team found nine parch- release.
according to the Israel An- ing against Rome during the ment fragments belonging to “His Royal Highness wishes to thank all the medical staff who
tiquities Authority. They are reign of Emperor Hadrian, a scroll with texts from the looked after him at both King Edward VII’s Hospital and St
the first new scrolls found in between 132 and 136. Coins Twelve Minor Prophets in Bartholomew’s Hospital, and everyone who has sent their
archaeological excavations in struck by rebels and arrow- Greek, and a scrap of Greek good wishes,’’ the palace said in a statement.
the desert south of Jerusalem heads found in other caves in papyrus. Philip’s illness is not believed to be related to COVID-19.
in 60 years. the region also hail from that Since then, no new texts have Both Philip and Elizabeth received coronavirus vaccines in
The Dead Sea Scrolls, a col- period. been found during archaeo- January and chose to publicize the matter to encourage others
lection of Jewish texts found “We found a textual differ- logical excavations, but many to also take the vaccine.
in desert caves in the West ence that has no parallel with have turned up on the black Philip, also known as the Duke of Edinburgh, retired in 2017
Bank near Qumran in the any other manuscript, either market, apparently plun- and rarely appears in public. Before his hospitalization, he had
1940s and 1950s, date from in Hebrew or in Greek,” said dered from caves. been isolating at Windsor Castle, west of London, with the
the third century B.C. to the Oren Ableman, a Dead Sea For the past four years, Israeli queen.
first century A.D. They in- Scroll researcher with the archaeologists have launched His illness comes as the royal family has been rocked by an in-
clude the earliest known cop- Israel Antiquities Authority. a major campaign to scour terview with Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and Prince Harry.
ies of biblical texts and docu- He referred to slight varia- caves nestled in the precipi- In the explosive broadcast, Meghan, who is biracial, said the
ments outlining the beliefs tions in the Greek rendering tous canyons of the Judean palace had failed to help her when she had suicidal thoughts
of a little understood Jewish of the Hebrew original com- Desert in search of scrolls and and that an unidentified member of the royal family had
sect. pared to the Septuagint — a other rare artifacts. The aim raised “concerns” about the color of her baby’s skin when she
The roughly 80 new pieces translation of the Hebrew is to find them before plun- was pregnant with her son, Archie.
are believed to belong to a Bible to Greek made in Egypt derers disturb the remote The interview, conducted by Oprah Winfrey, divided people
set of parchment fragments in the third and second cen- sites, destroying archaeologi- around the world. While many say the allegations demon-
found in a site in southern turies B.C. cal strata and data in search strate the need for change inside a palace that hasn’t kept pace
Israel known as the “Cave “When we think about the of antiquities bound for the with the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, others
of Horror” — named for the biblical text, we think about black market. have criticized Harry and Meghan for dropping their bomb-
40 human skeletons found something very static. It Until now the hunt had only shell while Philip was hospitalized.
there during excavations in wasn’t static. There are slight found a handful of parch- The longest-serving royal consort in British history, Philip
the 1960s — that also bear differences and some of those ment scraps that bore no text. married the then-Princess Elizabeth in 1947. He and the
a Greek rendition of the differences are important,” Amir Ganor, head of the queen have four children, eight grandchildren and nine great-
Twelve Minor Prophets, a said Joe Uziel, head of the antiquities theft prevention grandchildren.
book in the Hebrew Bible. antiquities authority’s Dead unit, said that since the com-
The cave is located in a re- Sea Scrolls unit. “Every little mencement of the operation
mote canyon around 40 ki- piece of information that we in 2017 there has been virtu-
lometers (25 miles) south of can add, we can understand a ally no antiquities plundering
Jerusalem. little bit better” how the Bib- in the Judean Desert, calling
The artifacts were found lical text came into its tradi- the operation a success.
during an operation in Israel tional Hebrew form. “For the first time in 70 years,
and the occupied West Bank Alongside the Roman-era ar- we were able to preempt the
conducted by the Israel An- tifacts, the exhibit included plunderers,” he said.