Qumran (Khirbet Qumran)

An archaeological site on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea where the community that produced or preserved the Dead Sea Scrolls likely resided. The scrolls themselves were discovered in eleven nearby caves beginning in 1947 when Bedouin shepherds found the first jars in Cave 1. Roland de Vaux of the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem excavated the settlement in five seasons from 1951 to 1956, uncovering a communal complex that included a large assembly hall, a scriptorium (writing room) with writing tables and inkwells, extensive water channels feeding into multiple ritual immersion baths (mikvaot), pottery kilns, and a cemetery of over 1,100 graves. De Vaux identified the inhabitants as Essenes, a Jewish sect described by Josephus and Pliny the Elder, who placed an Essene community "above Ein Gedi" on the western shore of the Dead Sea — precisely where Qumran is located. The Essene hypothesis remains the dominant scholarly view, though alternatives have been proposed: Norman Golb argued the scrolls were brought from Jerusalem libraries; Yizhar Hirschfeld suggested the site was a manor house; and others have proposed a Sadducean priestly origin. The main occupation dates to ca. 150 BCE - 68 CE, when the site was destroyed by the Roman Tenth Legion during the Great Revolt.