One of the most spectacular archaeological discoveries in Israel took place in 1960, when the legendary Yigael Yadin excavated a cave in the Dead Sea area subsequently called the "Cave of Letters." Located near the site of the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, the cave contained the largest cache of ancient personal correspondence and documents ever uncovered in Israel. Among the evidence were letters from Bar Kokhba, a messianic leader of a Jewish rebellion against the Romans in the second century whose meteoric rise and fall in some ways parallel the life of Jesus of Nazareth.
In 1999, archaeologist and Jewish historian Richard A. Freund and teams of scholars from around the world returned to the Cave of Letters and discovered new evidence about the use of the cave. Using advanced technology, including ground penetrating radar, Freund and his team located artifacts unknown to Yadin. Freund presents these intriguing findings in an absorbing account that combines history with suspense and mystery, bringing together an exciting tale of discovery, the history of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity, and the politics of the modern Middle East in an engrossing page-turner.
