Well-preserved 1900-year-old Roman swords discovered in Israel

“The hiding of the swords and the pilum in deep cracks in the isolated cave north of ‘En Gedi, hints that the weapons were taken as booty from Roman soldiers or from the battlefield, and purposely hidden by the Judean rebels for reuse,” said Eitan Klein, one of the directors of the Judean Desert Survey Project in a press statement.

4 exceptionally well-preserved #Roman swords were discovered in a crevice in a hidden cave in #Israel pic.twitter.com/d428VEzE4Z

— IE Science (@iexpressscience) September 7, 2023

“Obviously, the rebels did not want to be caught by the Roman authorities carrying these weapons. We are just beginning the research on the cave and the weapon cache discovered in it, aiming to try to find out who owned the swords, and where, when, and by whom they were manufactured. We will try to pinpoint the historical event that led to the caching of these weapons in the cave and determine whether it was at the time of the Bar Kokhba Revolt in 132–135 CE,” added Klein.

The swords were surprisingly well preserved; three of them were found with the iron blade inside the wooden scabbards. Leather strips and wooden and metal bits belonging to the weapons were also found in the crevice. The length of the blades of the three swords were between 60 and 65 centimetres. The fourth one was a shorter 45-centimetre-long blade, identified as a ring-pommel sword.

The swords were removed from the crevice in the rock and transferred to climate-controlled laboratories run by the authorities for preservation and conservation. An initial examination revealed that these were standard swords used by Roman soldiers stationed in the region during the period.