Qumran

Qumran is an archaeological site in the West Bank, managed by Israel's Qumran National Park. It stands on a dry marl plateau about 1.5 kilometres from the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea and about 10 kilometres south of Jericho, beside the Israeli kibbutz of Kalya. The Hellenistic period settlement was built under the Hasmonean leader John Hyrcanus, who reigned from 134 to 104 BCE, or somewhat later, and was inhabited by a Jewish sect of the late Second Temple period that most scholars identify with the Essenes. It was occupied for most of the time until 68 CE and destroyed by the Romans during the First Jewish-Roman War. The settlement is best known as the nearest site to the Qumran Caves, where nearly 900 Dead Sea Scrolls were hidden. Roland de Vaux led the principal excavations in the 1950s.