Qumran
Ruined settlement on a terrace above the north-west shore of the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in eleven caves in the cliffs around it between 1947 and 1956.
Qumran lies near the north-west corner of the Dead Sea, about fourteen kilometres south of Jericho. The first scrolls came from a cave about a kilometre north of Wadi Qumran in 1947. By 1956 written remains had been found in eleven caves along the cliffs, and the site itself had been excavated (Dead Sea Scrolls Leon Levy Digital Library, Discovery Sites). Pliny the Elder says that Essenes lived on the western side of the Dead Sea, with En-gedi “below” them (Pliny, Natural History 5.73 (5.15 in Bostock and Riley)), and most scholars connect that notice, the ruins and the scrolls. See the Community of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
What happened here
- about 150 BC to AD 68, estimated dateThe Community of the Dead Sea Scrolls
Caves at Qumran, by the Dead Sea, preserve biblical scrolls and the writings of a Jewish movement that lived under a strict common rule. Most scholars identify it with the Essenes described by Josephus and Pliny; some dispute this.
- 1947, estimated dateThe Dead Sea Scrolls Are Discovered
Bedouin bring seven ancient scrolls from a cave near Qumran to dealers in Bethlehem. A Syrian Orthodox archbishop and a Hebrew University professor buy them, and scholars find Hebrew manuscripts about a thousand years older than any biblical text then known.