THE MYSTERY OF THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 900 manuscripts that contain fragments of prophecies by Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Daniel along with important statements like the last words of Judah, Joseph, Levi, Naphtali, Amram. Some are in fragments (there are over 50,000 individual pieces in all). Others are substantial and complete, the longest scroll being 8 meters long. The Scrolls were written over a period of around 200 years and were placed in the caves to hide them from the advancing Roman army at the time of the First Jewish Revolt. The dry climate on the shores of the Dead Sea helped preserve the ancient documents.
The first Scrolls were discovered by a young Bedouin shepherd who found a cave, while searching for a lost goat, in 1947. He stumbled onto the vessels containing scrolls from 2,000 years ago. The vessels were taken back to the encampment. The people of the encampment then brought the scrolls to the Monastery of Saint Mark, and Orthodox Church of Antioch where the Archbishop Mar Samuel had first contact with them. The extent of the find quickly became apparent.
The interest in the scrolls with the hope of money from their sale initiated a long area-wide search. Fear of destruction of archaeological evidence led to a campaign by the French and the Americans to explore all other caves to find any remaining scrolls. Over the next 10 years, between the years 1947 and 1957, the site was thoroughly investigated. In 1952, although 230 natural caves, crevices and other possible hiding places were examined in an 8 km area along the cliffs near Qumran, only 40 contained a sort of artifacts and one alone, Cave#3, produced texts, the most unusual being the Copper Scroll.
The 900 scrolls were found in a series of 11 caves, among the thousands existing around the settlement, some accessible only through the settlement, all of them along the North West shore of the Dead Sea. The scrolls were wrapped in linen and stored inside clay jars. The caves produced the most intact and ancient documents ever found. Over 3/4 of the scrolls are written in Hebrew. The remainder are in Koine Greek and Aramaic. The writings are from right to left and without any punctuation marks.
About a quarter of the 900 scrolls (220 in all) are Books of the Hebrew Scripture (Old Testament), all of them in fact, except Esther and Nehemiah. The most common Books found are Psalms and Deuteronomy. Of the 40 scrolls that contain Psalms, over 1/2 (23) came from Cave#4;  and 6 came from Cave#11. This fragment is likely to derive from Cave#4, and shows verses from Psalm 33 and 35.
A further quarter are religious texts not part of the standard Bible, such as the Book of Enoch or the Book of Jubilees. The rest are other religious texts and a range of writings including lists of Laws, advice on Warfare, and a Catalogue of Places where treasure was buried. About 1 in 6 of the scrolls have not yet been identified. Papyrus is the main writing base, although some scrolls are also written on parchment and one on copper as well.
The collection of scrolls is considered the oldest copy of the Hebrew Scripture ever found, dating to at least 4th BC. Some of the texts were written even 1,000 years before the Old Testament, making it the oldest group of texts related to the Old Testament. Most of the things mentioned in these scrolls are not even found in the New Testament.
Sections of the scrolls were pierced together and they detailed special occasions celebrated by the ancient Jews, which observed a 364-day calendar. These included festivals of New Wheat, New Wine, and new Oil.
In contrast to the Christian Bible of today, which survives in many manuscripts dating back to the 4th CE, the oldest known source for the Hebrew Scripture before the discovery of the scrolls, was only a 1,000 years old. They therefore the earliest surviving sources we have for the Hebrew Scripture by almost another 1,000 years.
The Khirbet Qumran's settlement is atop a plateau overlooking the Ein Fesh'Kha Springs, 20km/13mi East of Jerusalem and at 400m/1300ft below sea level -the lowest place on earth a human can walk- .
The site belongs to the Judaean Desert in Israel and the West Bank, East of Jerusalem and descends to the Dead Sea The settlement was identified as the City of Salt listed in Joshua 15:62. However, Secaca is another settlement referenced in the same area that match the description in Joshua 15:61 as the City of Salt.
The very extensive excavations taken place at Qumran revealed that ancient Qumran was principally in use from the Hasmonean times until some time after the destruction of the temple (in the Herodian era) by Titus in 70 CE.  during the Jewish War.
The uncovered site is divided in two sections: a main building, a square structure of two stories featuring a central courtyard and a defensive tower on its North-Western corner; and a secondary building to the West. A complex water system was also found that supplied water to several stepped cisterns, some quite large, located in various parts of the site. Two of these cisterns were within the walls of the main building. Both the buildings and the water system showed signs of consistent renewal throughout the life of the settlement, with frequent additions, extensions and improvements. The water channel was raised to carry water to newer cisterns farther away and a dam was placed in the upper section of the settlement to secure more water, which was brought to the site by an aqueduct. Rooms were added, floors were raised, pottery ovens relocated and locations were repurposed.  At least three inkwells were found at the beginning  and over the following years of excavations more inkwells have come to light. The number of inkwells found is more that any other site of the Second temple period, a significant indication of writing at Qumran.
The Cisterns, the Jewish ritual baths, the cemeteries found, along with a dining assembly room, as well as pottery kilns and a tower reveal that the inhabitants of the site were a highly ritualistic type.
Many researchers now agreed that the location was a type of small Jewish fortress. The large cemetery discovered to the East of the site, contain mostly male remains, however some females remains were also discovered. Over a thousand bodies are buried at the site.