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…