From the Garden Tomb we traveled out of Jerusalem to Qumran, which is on the NW corner of the Dead Sea. This is the greatest archeological find of the 20th century. In 1947 a young goat herder was looking for one of his lost goats and was tossing stones into caves. He was startled to hear a crash. Upon investigating, he found a number of pottery jars containing rolled up scrolls of leather.
our guide told us that this was the ONLY place on the planet that could have kept those scrolls preserved.....The Dead Sea is the LOWEST place on earth. The area has about 10% more oxygen, gets less than 1 inch of rain annually and is extremely arid. An additional tidbit that I found fascinating is that the scrolls were purchased for Israel on the very same day that the country was granted "statehood" on May 14, 1948. The very foundation of the Jewish faith came to Israel the same day.....coincidence? I think NOT!
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