Cave of Letters
cave
The Cave of Letters (Hebrew: מערת האיגרות, romanized: Marat Ha-Igerot) is a refuge cave in Nahal Hever in the Judaean Desert where letters and fragments of papyri from the Roman Empire period were found. Some are related to the Bar Kokhba Revolt (circa 131–136 CE), including letters of correspondence between Bar Kokhba and his subordinates. Another notable bundle of papyri, known as the Babatha cache, comprises legal documents of Babatha, a female landowner of the same period.
Geography
The cave is located at the head of Nahal Hever in the Judean Desert, about 40 kilometres (25 mi) south of Qumran, 20 km south of Wadi Murabba'at. The site is a few kilometers southwest of En-gedi, approximately 10 kilometers north of Masada, on the western shore of the Dead Sea. The cave has two openings, three halls and some crevices.
History
The cave was discovered by Bedouin of the Ta'amireh tribe and explored in 1953 and 1955 by inspector of the Israel Department of Antiquities, Yohanan Aharoni. In 1953, after the sale of letters written by Bar-Kokhba found in the caves of Wadi Murabba'at, an expedition was organized to explore these caves. However the expedition first visited Nahal Hever, where the team noticed remnants of a Roman siege camp directly above the Cave of Letters. Another camp was also discovered on the southern side of the ravine.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q997543. VIAF identifies the subject as 315150698. The Library of Congress control number is sh2004001938. Authority coordinates are 31.433, 35.343. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1953 and 1955.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cave of Letters” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.