Israel unveiled newly discovered Dead Sea Scroll fragments Wednesday that were presented to the public and contained biblical texts believed to have been written nearly 2,000 years ago.

The newly deciphered texts add to the body of artifacts that have already reshaped the history of early Christian life and Judaism. The fragments were the first to be unearthed by archeologists from the Judean Desert in close to 60 years. The fragment sizes ranged from just a few millimeters to a few inches.

Archeologists discovered the fragments as part of a four-year Israel national project that explored remote caves and crevices in Jerusalem's eastern and southeastern regions.

Apart from the fragments, other artifacts that were discovered included a woven basket dated approximately 10,500 years ago, making it one of the oldest intact baskets ever discovered.

"The desert team showed exceptional courage, dedication, and devotion to purpose, rappelling down to caves located between heaven and earth," the director of the Israel Antiquities Authority, Israel Hasson, said.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were originally discovered by a Bedouin shepherd in 1947. The scrolls, which are the earliest written copies of the Hebrew Bible, contained almost every book, including those that are no longer found on modern Bibles.

The scrolls are made of parchment and papyrus, which makes them very delicate. Researchers said that the arid conditions of the Judean Desert preserved the scrolls, which would have otherwise disintegrated if they were stored somewhere else. The Israel Antiquities Authority currently holds around 15,000 separate fragments of the scrolls.

The latest fragments were discovered south of Ein Gedi in a place archeologists call the Horror Caves. The fragments were believed to be part of several scrolls written more than 1,900 years ago during the period of the Bar Kokhba revolt.

The fragments contained verses from several books, including the Book of Zechariah - including a portion that has the name of God written in ancient Hebrew.

"These are the things you are to do: Speak the truth to one another, render true and perfect justice in your gates. And do not contrive evil against one another, and do not love perjury, because all those are things that I hate, declares the Lord," a line of deciphered text had read.