Collection A : The Cave of Letters
In the first collection of Ceremonials, we chose to explore the cave of letters in Nahal Hever at the Judean Desert. Important findings from the Bar Kokhba revolt (131-136 CE) were found in the cave. The artifacts included personal belonging
s of the refugees hiding in the cave, an archive of documents by a matron named
s of the refugees hiding in the cave, an archive of documents by a matron named
Babatha, and letters sent to the commanders of the revolt by Bar Kokhba himself. The findings shed light on the lives of the people at that time and also enriched the knowledge about the Bar Kokhba revolt, which until then had been based mainly on the sources of Jewish literature written hundreds of years later.
The objects designed for the first collection are inspired by the findings: its materiality and its obsolescence, the characteristic and their unusual formality for us, the manuscript and the iconography, as well as the enigmatic and joyous discovery of the archaeological excavation itself.
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