Officials are calling it a "historic find" in Israel's desert caves. Parts of a Biblical scroll and other artifacts have been unearthed. Hundreds of parchment pieces, written in Greek, with only the name of God in Hebrew.

Following a failed rebellion against Roman rule in the second century, the scroll is thought to have belonged to Jewish rebels. They were discovered during an operation to prevent looting of caves in the region.

It's the first discovery of its kind after similar fragments and 40 skeletons were found at the site that named it the Cave of Horror in the early 1960s. A verse from the books of Zechariah and Nahum, which are part of the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets, have been discovered as well.

The parchment was written in Greek, adopted after Alexander the Great conquered Judea in the 4th century BC. The name of God is only found in Hebrew. The scroll and other artifacts discovered there, according to Israel Antiquities Authority director Israel Hasson, are valuable for mankind.

The site also had rare coins from the time of the Jewish rebellion, a 6,000-year-old mummified skeleton of a boy, and a huge intact basket dated from about 10,500 years ago.

The cave is 80 metres under a cliff face. The expedition was part of an operation to secure the cave network from antiquities looters. Over the years, archaeologists have discovered numerous objects in the Judean Desert's cliffs and caves, including the world-famous Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest recorded copies of Biblical texts.