Nahal Mishmar is one of the smaller seasonal streams in the Judean Desert

Judean desert

The Judaean Desert is a desert in Israel and the West Bank that lies east of Jerusalem and descends to the Dead Sea. It stretches from the northeastern Negev to the east of Beit El, and is marked by terraces with escarpments. It ends in a steep escarpment dropping to the Dead Sea and the Jordan...

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Geography

Nahal Mishmar begins in the Hebron

Hebron

Hebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...

 hills, running east towards the Dead Sea

Dead Sea

The Dead Sea , also called the Salt Sea, is a salt lake bordering Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank to the west. Its surface and shores are below sea level, the lowest elevation on the Earth's surface. The Dead Sea is deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world...

. Its western part is shallow, at an altitude of approximately 270 m above sea level, and it proceeds to fall more than 300 meters into the Great Rift Valley

Great Rift Valley

The Great Rift Valley is a name given in the late 19th century by British explorer John Walter Gregory to the continuous geographic trench, approximately in length, that runs from northern Syria in Southwest Asia to central Mozambique in South East Africa...

 before emptying into the Dead Sea, over 12 kilometres (7.5 mi). Nahal Mishmar runs north of the Tze'elim Stream, between Ein Gedi

Ein Gedi

Ein Gedi is an oasis in Israel, located west of the Dead Sea, near Masada and the caves of Qumran.-Etymology:The name En-gedi is composed of two Hebrew words: ein means spring and gdi means goat-kid. En Gedi thus means "Kid spring."...

 and Masada

Masada

Masada is the name for a site of ancient palaces and fortifications in the South District of Israel, on top of an isolated rock plateau, or horst, on the eastern edge of the Judean Desert, overlooking the Dead Sea. Masada is best known for the violence that occurred there in the first century CE...

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Access is from Highway 90.

Archaeology

In 1961, Israeli archaeologist Pessah Bar-Adon

Pessah Bar-Adon

Pessah Bar-Adon was a Polish-born, Israeli archaeologist and writer.-Early life:Born Pessah Panitsch in Kolno, Poland, to a Zionist, ultra-orthodox family, he was educated in a Jewish orthodox school and in Yeshivas. He immigrated to Israel in 1925...

 discovered a hoard of Chalcolithic artifacts in a cave on the northern side of Nahal Mishmar. The hoard included 432 copper, bronze, ivory and stone decorated objects; 240 mace heads, about 100 scepters, 5 crowns, powder horns, tools and weapons. Archaeologist David Ussishkin

David Ussishkin

David Ussishkin is an Israeli archaeologist. Now retired as Professor of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, Ussishkin has directed and co-directed important excavations at a variety of sites, including Lachish, Jezreel and Megiddo....

 has suggested the hoard was the cultic furniture of the abandoned Chalcolithic Temple of Ein Gedi

Chalcolithic Temple of Ein Gedi

The Chalcolithic Temple of Ein Gedi is a Ghassulian public building dating from about 3500 BCE. It lies atop a scarp above the oasis of Ein Gedi, on the western shore of the Dead Sea, within modern-day Israel...

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