Archaeologists Challenge Link Between Dead Sea Scrolls and Ancient Sect - New York Times

New archaeological evidence is raising more questions about the conventional interpretation linking the desolate ruins of an ancient settlement known as Qumran with the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were found in nearby caves in one of the sensational discoveries of the last century.

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Qumran—The Pottery Factory (Biblical Archaelogy Review)

Israeli Antiquities Authority

Tsila Sagib/Israel Antiquities Authority

Some of the scrolls were hidden in jars like these, found in an excavation of the site.

The New York Times

After early excavations at the site, on a promontory above the western shore of the Dead Sea, scholars concluded that members of a strict Jewish sect, the Essenes, had lived there in a monastery and presumably wrote the scrolls in the first centuries B.C. and A.D.

Many of the texts describe religious practices and doctrine in ancient Israel.

But two Israeli archaeologists who have excavated the site on and off for more than 10 years now assert that Qumran had nothing to do with the Essenes or a monastery or the scrolls. It had been a pottery factory.