Palestine - QUMRAN: Caves and Monastery of the Dead Sea Scrolls

The site, identified by some scholars with the biblical “City of Salt”, was occupied mainly during the Greco-Roman period (ca. 150 BC-68 AD). The community that inhabited Qumran is generally identified with the Essenes, a religious sect, which lived in isolation in this region west of the Dead Sea. Qumran became internationally well known in 1947, when a Palestinian shepherd called Mohammad al-Theeb discovered in a cave a series of scrolls, which were known later on as the Dead Sea Scrolls. The cave, then called cave no.1, was excavated in 1949 by a joint expedition from the Jordan Department of Antiquities, thePalestinianArchaeologicalMuseumand the école Biblique Francaise. Similar discoveries were made in eleven other caves between 1952 and 1956. A Copper Scroll consisting of two rolls of copper was found in cave no. 3. The scrolls consist of copies of biblical and apocryphal literature, the writings of the sect, including the Commentaries, the Rule of the Community, the Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness, and the Damascus Document. The dates of these scrolls range from the II century BC to 68 AD, but mostly dated from the first century BC. The study of the Scrolls developed into an academic discipline known as Qumranic studies. It provides us with valuable information about the history of Judaism and the early phase of Christianity.