18.4. Qumran, Dead Sea, Jerusalem "Friends of Zion" Museum

We drove down to the Dead Sea. There at the north-western shore in the Judean desert we visited the ruins of the famous settlement of the Essenes, a break-away sect. Qumran was established during the Hellenistic Period 134-104 BC. The Essenes settled here isolating themselves from big city life and livingn as a communal monastery-like community. They ate communal meals after taking ritual baths, studied the scriptures, practiced celibacy and had their own calendar. About 200 people once lived here.
In 1947 local Bedouins discovered a clay jar containing 7 scrolls in a cave about 1,5 km from Qumran. The ancient scrolls were sold to antique dealers and finally reached scholars who could evaluate their age and value.
The Dead Sea Scrolls comprise 850 documents including the Hebrew Bible and were discovered in 11 caves in and around the Wadi Qumran near the ruins of the settlement. The texts are of great significance as they are the only remaining Biblical documents dating from before AD 100.
In the visitor center we saw a film about the Essenes and walked around with an audio guide that. We saw the remains of the aqueducts, cisterns, the tower, scriptorium, kitchen, assembly hall, pottery, workshops and the cattle pen.
We later climbed up to what seemed like a cave but turned out to be just a small hollow.

                                               drive down to the Dead Sea below sea level

                                                                      blooming desert

approaching Qumran

                                                                         

                                                     remains of the Essenes settlement

 the cave where the Shepherd boy found the first scroll

                                             view to the east - right up there is "our" cave

                                                                    coming closer

                                                                        more caves

Our next stop was the Dead Sea - Kahila beach. There we found everything we needed: showers and some chairs in the shade and lots of mud. Fot the boys it was a first time experience and they had to get used to the feeling. You can't actually swim, you wade into the water and then you have a seat and float in the water with 30 percent of salt and minerals. Your skin feels very smooth afterwards. The temperature was about 24 degrees and outside we had 26 degrees - just perfect at this time of the year. We stayed of about two hours and drove back to Jerusalem.

 

Next stop: "Friends of Zion" Museum Jerusalem. Manni went there two weeks ago, when he was in Jerusalem and he wanted to take us there as this museum is about us: Non-Jewish friends of Zion. Manni already wrote about this very good museum with lots of multimedia presentations and surprises and it can be found here: https://www.fozmuseum.com
We liked it very much and met a nice family from Germany who are visiting Israel for the first time. Together we went to a Humus restaurant nearby and could give them some recommendations about places to visit. Jakob was happy to be around children again. It was really nice meeting you Nicola and Chris - enjoy the holy land!