Qumran Caves

The Qumran Caves are a series of natural and artificial caves found throughout the archaeological site of Qumran in the Judaean Desert of the West Bank fortuitously revealed in 1947 by a local Bedouin boy while searching for a stray animal. Many archeological digs since then took place, with specialist Roland de Vaux conducting the principal excavations in the 1950s; the real reason why the Qumran Caves are so famous, however, is because the oldest scriptures of the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, were discovered there in 1956. The caves, which are named Qumran because of the Arabic word meaning “crescent moon”, are located on a plateau about a mile from the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, near the Israeli settlement of Kalya. Studies have shown that the first settlement in the area dates back the eighth century BCE and remained active until the destruction of the Temple in 586 BC.

Practical Info

The Qumran Caves are now equipped with a visitor center, a restaurant and a souvenir shop, which is open year-round. There are plenty of tour operators offering half-day trips to the Qumran Caves from Jerusalem and it is also possible to get there by car in 40 minutes via road 90 to Kibbutz-Kalia. It is recommended to avoid visiting during summer afternoons because of the heat. Tours take approximately 1 to 2 hours.