More than 50 years have passed since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the excavation of the site of Qumran. In the late 1960’s, Father de Vaux from the Ecole Biblique et Archéologique Française, was invited by Brown University to present the results of his excavation and share his insights with the scholarly world. Since then, more books and articles have been written on the subject than on any other site in the Near East. Yet, it is the scrolls that have stood in the spotlight and those who have tried to understand and explain the mysteries of the site are mostly historians of religion. The archaeology of the site and the surrounding area have often played a minor, auxiliary role. At the proposed conference past and recent archaeological discoveries at Qumran and the area will be presented and discussed.
