The Cave of Letters and Babatha archive

Record summary

Exploration of the Cave of Letters in Nahal Hever produced documents, textiles, weapons and other objects associated with the Bar Kokhba period. The archive of Babatha, a Jewish woman from the early second century CE, contains contracts and legal records that illuminate property, marriage, guardianship and Roman provincial administration. It matters for comparing documentary evidence with refuge behavior and the social history of Roman Judaea. The archive’s contents were recovered from a difficult cave context, and relationships among documents, people and episodes require careful reconstruction rather than assumptions of a single dramatic event.