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Twenty (20) km south of Jericho, one kilometer before Ain Al Faskha on the western shore of the Dead Sea, is one of the world's most ancient monasteries "monastery of the Essenes". This is the place where the world famous Dead Sea Scrolls were found. The discovery story of the scrolls goes back to 1947 when a Bedouin shepherd happened upon several scrolls in clay jars hidden in a cave on a rocky cliff high above the Dead Sea. The Jordan Department of Antiquities along with the French school of archaeology in Jerusalem, searched every hole in these desolate hills and turned up one of the most exciting discoveries of modern times: Biblical manuscripts, 2000 years old, predating by some 1000 years the earliest known Hebrew text of the Old Testament. Among the finds were books of an unknown religious community, identified as the Essenes, a pre-Christian, mystical Jewish sect. The writings in these scrolls covered a period of 300 years, including the birth of Christ. They offer insights and a background to the teachings of Christ. The Essence community came to Qumran in the late second century BC. They lived in caves and dwellings around Khirbet Qumran under strict rules of obedience and high ethical standards in a secluded life of prayer and study. They spent their lives studying and writing the holy scripture and praying for the coming of the Messiah. To cope with the problem of water on the waterless hilltop, an aqueduct was built to bring captured rainwater from nearby Wadi Qumran. Visitors will notice a large numbers of cisterns at the site. In AD 68 the settlement came to an abrupt end when a Roman Legion, enroute to Jerusalem to put down a revolt, destroyed the community. The Essence fled after placing their precious manuscripts in the nearby caves for safekeeping, but they never came back, the settlement and the people were lost to history. Displays of scroll fragments may be seen at the Archeological Museums in Amman and in the museums of Jerusalem. |
