The story of the Dead Sea Scrolls is full of intrigue: an extraordinary desert discovery, a mysterious cult, wars both ancient and modern, a treasure hunt, and an international affair.

Between Jerusalem and the west coast of the Dead Sea, amid the rocky mountains, scorched by the sun of the Judean Desert, over the waters of the world’s saltiest lake, there are few signs of life. Any fish that is swept here by the current of the Jordan River swiftly dies. Once it was called the Sea of Sodom, for it was believed that in its depths lay the ruins of a city leveled by God. Land animals somehow get by. Arabian leopards lived here long ago; now all you see is the occasional Nubian ibex, viper, or a hopping sand partridge. Over the wasteland fly birds with various names: fan-tailed ravens; Arabian babblers; barn swallows. Humans did not survive easily here, and perhaps that is why the local caves were favored by old hermits. Today the only inhabitants are nomadic Bedouin tribes. It turns out, however, that this has not always been the case. The ruins of an ancient settlement were discovered in the nineteenth century on a marl terrace, a mile or so from the Dead Sea shore. So far scientists have no definitive answer as to who lived there.

Through Fences and Over the Ocean

One day in 1947, three shepherds from the Ta’amire tribe—Muhammad az-Zib (or edh-Dhib), Jum’a Muhammad, and Khalil Musa—were wandering just north of these ruins. They had lost sight of one of their goats. Muhammad noticed it had run into a cave in the mountainside, so he dashed over, grabbed a rock, and threw it inside to scare the animal. Instead of a frightened bleat, the boy heard the clatter of a clay pot smashing. As he entered the cave, the shapes of ceramic jugs danced before his eyes in the gloom. Some of the vessels were destroyed; others