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Qumran Caves

The Qumran Caves (Arabic: كهوف قمران Kuhūf Qumrān; Hebrew: מערות קומראן HaMeara Kumran) are a series of caves, both natural and artificial, found around the archaeological site of Qumran in the Judaean Desert. It is in these caves that the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.

Israel Nature and Parks Authority took over the site following the end of the 1967 war, when Israel occupied the West Bank and seized Qumran. Israel has since invested heavily in the area to establish the Qumran caves as a site of "uniquely Israeli Jewish heritage".[1] The caves are recognized in Israel as a National Heritage Site, despite the caves being in occupied Palestinian territories; as such, the designation has drawn criticism.[2]

History[edit]

The limestone cliffs above Qumran contain numerous caves that have been used over the millennia: the first traces of occupation are from the Chalcolithic period then onward to the Arab period.[3] The artificial caves relate to the period of the settlement at Qumran and were cut into the marl bluffs of the terrace on which Qumran sits.

Shrine of the Book

Rockefeller Museum

Antiquities trade

The Dead Sea Scrolls (Harmondsworth: Pelican, 1956).

Allegro, J. M.

Broshi, Magen, and Eshel, Hanan, "Residential Caves at Qumran." Dead Sea Discoveries 6 (1999), 328–348.

de Vaux, Roland, Archaeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973). English translation from the French.

Stökl Ben Ezra, Daniel, "Old Caves and Young Caves: A Statistical Reevaluation of a Qumran Consensus" Dead Sea Discoveries 14,3 (2007), 313–333.

& Chambon, Alain, The Excavations of Khirbet Qumran and Ain Feshkha, Vol. 1B. trans by Stephen J. Pfann, Editions Universitaires Fribourg Suisse (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Goettingen, 2003).

Humbert, J.-B.

Alain Chambon, Jolanta Mlynarczyk, Khirbet Qumrân et Aïn Feshkha, Fouilles du P. Roland de Vaux, vol. IIIa, L'archéologie de Qumrân, Reconsidération de l'interprétation; Corpus of the Lamps, Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus, Series Archaeologica 5a, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 2016, 536 p. (ISBN 978-3-525-54054-1)

Humbert, J.-B.

Patrich, Joseph, "Khirbet Qumran in the Light of New Archaeological Explorations in the Qumran Caves", in Methods of Investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Khirbet Qumran Site: Present Realities and Future Prospects (ed. Michael O. Wise, , John J. Collins, and Dennis G. Pardee); Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 722 (New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1994) 73–95.

Norman Golb

Patrich, Joseph, "Did Extra-Mural Dwelling Quarters Exist at Qumran?" in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Fifty Years After Their Discovery. Edited by , Emanuel Tov, James C. VanderKam, and Galen Marquis (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2000) 720–727.

Lawrence H. Schiffman

The Untold Story of Qumran, (Westwood: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1965).

Trever, J. C.

VanderKam, James & Flint, Peter, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls (HarperSanFrancisco, 2002)  0-06-068464-X

ISBN

The Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature Cave Tour

31°44′31″N 35°27′31″E / 31.74194°N 35.45861°E / 31.74194; 35.45861