Whither the Dead Sea Scrolls?

The Peripatetic Historian visits Qumran, hoping to find the Dead Sea Scrolls

Cave Four, Qumran. All photos by author, unless otherwise indicated.

It is a place that is famous for what is no longer there.

Shortly after the end of World War II, a young Bedouin boy named Muhammid Ahmed el-Hamed was exploring caves in the limestone cliffs that stand west of the Dead Sea. In one of these caverns, high off the ground, he made a most extraordinary discovery: ancient clay urns that contained papyrus writings that were more than 2,000 years old.

Muhammid had discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls, one of the most important treasures of the ancient world. These Hebrew writings are the oldest copies of the Hebrew Bible we possess, the earliest witnesses to the biblical text.

Today one can visit the sere limestone cliffs where these important works were found. Who knows — maybe more scrolls are hidden in a nearby cave.

The Essenes

Qumran stands thirteen kilometers south of the ancient city of Jericho, perched between the Dead Sea and a line of mountains that seals the western edge of the Jordan Rift Valley. A mixture of salt and sandstone, it is difficult to imagine a less promising landscape. Stunted date palms, planted on a grid, are the predominant vegetation; they cling to life only by…