The Nahal Mishmar hoard (also called the "Cave of the Treasure hoard") is the hoard of archaeological artifacts found by a 1961 expedition led by Pessah Bar-Adon in a cave by Nahal Mishmar in the Judaean Desert near the Dead Sea, Israel. The collection wrapped in a straw mat found under debris in a natural crevice contained 442 objects: 429 of copper, six of hematite, one of stone, five of hippopotamus ivory, and one of elephant ivory. Carbon-14 dating of the mat suggests the date at least 3,500 BCE, i.e., it places the hoard into the Chalcolithic period."The Nahal Mishmar Treasure", the Metropolitan Museum of Art"Diggers" (cached), Time Magazine, May 5, 1961 Yorke M. Rowan and David Ilan, The Subterranean Landscape of the Southern Levant during the Chalcolithic Period. In H. Moyes (ed.) Sacred Darkness: A Global Perspective on the Ritual Use of Caves. University Press of Colorado, 2012, pp. 87-107 Moorey, P. R. S. "The Chalcolithic Hoard from Nahal Mishmar, Israel, in Context." World Archaeology, vol. 20, no. 2, 1988, pp. 171–189.
Origin of the hoard The objects of the hoard seem to have been collected in a hurry. There are several theories about the origin of the hoard. Archaeologist David Ussishkin has suggested the hoard may have been the cultic furniture of the abandoned Chalcolithic Temple of Ein Gedi about south from the site. Yosef Garfinkel stated that no proof have been provided for the connection of the hoard with the temple and suggested that this was a burial of cult objects, to prevent their desecration, drawing a parallel with the find in the Nahal Hemar CaveGarfinkel Y. "Ritual Burial of Cultic Objects: The Earliest Evidence", Cambridge Archaeological Journal 4 (1994), 159-188, Miriam Tadmor suggests that it was a kind of merchants' warehouse, judging from the amount of mundane objects, as well as tools and raw materials.Tadmor, M. (1989). The Judean desert Treasure from Nahal Mishmar, A Chalcolithic Trader's Hoard? In Leonard, A. and Williams, B. (eds.) Essays in Ancient Civilizations, Presented to Helene J. Kantor SAOC 47: 249-261 It was also suggested that a possible alternate source of the hoard could have been another cultic location, at the place of some fragmentary ruins near the cave.
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