A few days ago I was given the opportunity to take part in an archaeological dig. When I realized the location- I told my wife that I had to go regardless of the long drive and hard work.
What was it about this particular dig that captivated me so much?
The story starts 2000 years ago in the barren cliffs in the northern Dead Sea when a group of Jews decided to start living an ascetic, communal life and brought/wrote a number of scrolls which were placed into caves.
In 1948 a Bedouin shepherd found a segment of a scroll in one of the caves. In the years following other segments of scrolls were found and made their way onto the black market. In 1949 the Jordanians did the first organized archaeological digs and more have been done since then. Thousands of segments of written material were found from 972 original scrolls.
These scrolls give us a interesting view of what was important to the people who lived there thousands of years ago. The Dead Sea Scrolls, as they are referred to, fall into a few different categories:
• From the Jewish Bible meaning that they are segments or scrolls that were canonized and are part of the
Tanakh.
• Jewish Apocrypha which are Jewish theological texts that were written around the time of the second temple
but were not canonized
• Sectoral scrolls which are scrolls that have been found only at Qumran and have no known parallels
The different texts that were found have given raise to many theories as to who the people that lived there were and what segment of the Jewish people they belonged to.
In addition to scrolls, the remains of a small communal village were found. The buildings of the village included a communal dining hall, ritual baths and a water system.
Clearly the inhabitants decided to live a secluded communal life in the mountains.
One of the widely accepted theories claims that the people were Essenes. This was a sect of Judaism that, according to Josephus Flavious and Piloni the Elder, lived in communities that held a philosophy that promoted lives of piety, celibacy, communal life and lives devoted to prayer, charity and the study of holy scripts.
The theory that the Essenes were the inhabitants of Qumeran is widely accepted due to the types of scrolls found, the communal dining hall, and the ritual baths.
There is even a strong suspicion that ‘John the Baptist’ יוחנן המתביל was a member of this group of people and he was influential in the spread of the group’s ideas. Some people see this site as being the fore runner of the Christian idea of hermitage and monasteries.
A different theory claims that the scrolls didn’t belong to the inhabitants rather they were brought by kohanim (priests) from Jerusalem right before the destruction of the Temple in the year 70.
This theory gave rise to the idea that treasures from the temple may have also been hidden in the caves.
One of the ‘scrolls’ that was found was actually made of copper. It was written in a cryptic way and gives directions to find hidden treasure.
These attracted adventurers who searched for the treasures of the temple in the mountains of Qumran. One of these Adventurers/scholars was Wendell Jones who claims to be the inspiration for Indiana Jones.
After the short ‘rescue dig’ that I took part in – in order to find relics before antiquities thieves got to them – there were a number of minor findings. These findings included a few coins and the remains of jars that could have previously held scrolls. In the upcoming months the objects will be studied and may give us more information as to who the inhabitants where and what their life style was, but the mysteries remain and the treasures of the temple have yet to be found.
