At one time just another cliff in the Judean Desert, Qumran is now famous for one of the most fascinating biblical archeological discoveries in the 20th century. The discovery between 1946 and 1956 of over 800 scrolls written in ancient Hebrew undisputedly confirmed the authenticity of many biblical texts. Written in the scrolls are prophecies by Ezekiel, Jeremiah and Daniel not found in the Bible, and a relatively intact scroll from Isaiah is 1000 years older than any other known copy of Isaiah.
It was here that a small Jewish communal sect lived that the first century historian Josephus Flavius describes as the Essenes. You can visit the museum that describes the communal life and purity rituals of the Essenes also recorded in the recently discovered scrolls or hike the path to the caves where the scrolls were stored in pots.
