Illustration
The Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) are a collection of scrolls found in the desert east of Jerusalem on the shore of the Dead Sea. They represent the largest manuscript collections of texts from the Second Temple Period found in the area of Judah, an area notorious for its lack of manuscripts. Around 930 texts were found in 11 caves in the hills surrounding Khirbet (=ruins of) Qumran. The texts are the product of a community of Essenes who lived in the nearby ruins of Qumran and were composed between the 3rd century BCE and the 1st century CE. They are significant because they shed considerable light on the religious and political world of late Second Temple Judaism and on the text of the Hebrew Bible.
License & Copyright
This image was first published on Flickr.
Original image by Ken & Nyetta. Uploaded by Mark Cartwright, published on 13 December 2012. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon a work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. When republishing on the web a hyperlink back to the original content source URL must be included. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.
Related Images
Dead Sea Scrolls Jars
Dead Sea Scrolls - The War Scroll
Dead Sea Scroll Qohelet from Qumran
Dead Sea Scroll of Pesher Isaiah
Dead Sea Scroll 28 from Qumran
Dead Sea Scroll Testimonia from Qumran
Cite This Work
APA Style
Nyetta, K. &. (2012, December 13). Dead Sea Scrolls. World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/image/982/dead-sea-scrolls/
Chicago Style
Nyetta, Ken &. "Dead Sea Scrolls." World History Encyclopedia. Last modified December 13, 2012. https://www.worldhistory.org/image/982/dead-sea-scrolls/.
MLA Style
Nyetta, Ken &. "Dead Sea Scrolls." World History Encyclopedia. World History Encyclopedia, 13 Dec 2012. Web. 21 Feb 2025.
