Original subtitles

[Narrator] In Jerusalem, a team of archaeologists

unearths mysterious ancient ruins.

We have this last layer,

and I just got to take the sledgehammer to it.

[Narrator] As they dig deeper,

they reveal a lost religious complex.

[Archaeologist] We were very surprised to find this.

Hold on! The battle's not over yet.

[Narrator] That could shed light on one of the greatest

archaeological discoveries in history--

the Dead Sea Scrolls.

[Archaeologist] This is very exciting.

[Narrator] While the archaeologists in the field

uncover the world of the scrolls,

researchers in the lab decode the texts.

[Researcher 1] I think I'm starting to see

something already.

[Researcher 2] That text has just basically appeared

out of nowhere.

[Narrator] Using new technologies

to unravel their ancient mysteries.

[Researcher 1] That’s amazing!

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[Narrator] The stories in the Bible

are famous across the world.

They tell of great battles between good and evil,

earth-shaking catastrophes

and epic heroes.

Now new archaeological discoveries

buried in the Middle East for thousands of years

shed light on how these stories survived to the modern day.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are among the most important

religious manuscripts ever found.

[Joan Taylor] The Dead Sea Scrolls were really

the major discovery of the 20th century.

They capture the public imagination

because they are mysterious.

[Narrator] Discovered in desert caves in the late 1940s,

they include some of the oldest known copies of books

from the Old Testament.

Today, archaeologists and scientists investigate

how they came to be hidden in the caves

and what the scrolls themselves can reveal

about the people who hid them.

13 miles east of Jerusalem, on the shores of the Dead Sea,

lies the desert site of Qumran.

Archaeologist Danny Herman investigates here.

[Danny Herman] This is a very rugged landscape

where between the western shores of the Dead Sea

and the cliffs of the Judaean Desert,

this is definitely a place with mysticism.

[Narrator] The limestone cliffs which dominate this landscape

are dotted with mysterious cave openings.

[Danny] In the winter of 1946, 1947,

two Bedouins were searching this area,

maybe looking for a lost goat,

and in what would later be labeled as cave number one,

that's where they find perhaps

the grandest archaeological discovery ever made

in the Holy Land.

[Narrator] As the story goes, one of the Bedouins

threw a stone into the cave to scare the goat out of hiding.

But instead he heard the sound of something breaking.

[pottery shatters]

When he entered the cave, he found seven large clay jars

wrapped in linen and sealed with lids.

Inside them were blackened parchments.

Some were still full scrolls,

while others had broken down into fragments.

They were a series of ancient manuscripts

including the earliest copies

of Old Testament texts ever found,

along with other ancient religious writings.

[Danny] Nothing compares to the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Hundreds of manuscripts,

including copies of the Old Testament,

in caves by the western shores of the Dead Sea.

[Narrator] Since the initial discovery,

the remains of around 950 scrolls

have been found in 11 caves.

But none of them state who their owners were.

[Danny] There is still a lot that can be learnt

from the scrolls,

even the most basic questions about who wrote them,

when did he hide them, and why?

It’s just one big mystery.

[Narrator] The process of decoding how the scrolls

ended up in the caves begins in Jerusalem

where today most are kept.

Archaeologist Joe Uziel oversees

the Dead Sea Scrolls unit

of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The survival of these fragile texts to the modern day

is one of the great marvels of archaeology.

[Joe Uziel] The climate of the desert and the protection

of the caves allowed them to survive.

And we have to make sure that we can pass this on

to our next generation

and they can continue to care for the scrolls.

[Narrator] Joe wants to know what the scrolls can reveal

about the people who hid them.

The problem is that some texts have weathered their stay

in the desert better than others.

[Joe] The scroll of the Book of Psalms from cave four

was discovered in 1952.

You can see a lot of the damage here on the scroll,

the wrinkling, the holes that were created

by worms eating through the leather of the scroll.

[Narrator] Joe and his team must first attempt

to undo this damage and stabilize the scrolls

before they can uncover the secrets within them.

[Joe] It begins with a very, very, very careful examination

in order to document

the different types of damage on the scroll.

[Narrator] After this initial examination,

the team decides what steps are needed to preserve the scroll.

[Joe] It could be that the scroll needs to be strengthened

where there are cracks or holes.

A lot of what we do has to do with caring for the scrolls

in very, very strict parameters

of temperature, humidity, exposure to light.

[Narrator] By preserving the scrolls in this meticulous way,

Joe and his team keep them available to scholars.

As new research techniques emerge,

they could find new insights into the manuscripts

that would previously have been impossible.

[Joe] Today with the development of new scientific technologies,

I not only gain important knowledge

about how to conserve the scrolls,

but I can also gain a lot of knowledge about the scrolls

in terms of how they were prepared,

how they were written,

and maybe even sometimes who was writing them.

[Narrator] The identity of who hid the scrolls and why

might be a mystery, but radiocarbon dating tests reveal

that most of the scrolls date to around 2,000 years ago.

This was a pivotal time in Jewish history

when the Roman Empire ruled over the region of Judaea

where many Jewish people lived.

At a site called Ophel Hill in Jerusalem,

experts investigate Roman period remains

that could shed light on the world the scrolls came from.

Orit Peleg-Barkat and Uzi Leibner lead the dig.

[Orit Peleg-Barkat] So, for me it's like my second home.

Not everyone can excavate in such a place

where so much history is embedded

in each and every stone.

Revealing something that was hidden for so many years,

suddenly it rises out of the ground,

and it’s a great adventure.

[Narrator] 2,000 years ago,

Jerusalem was one of the biggest cities

in the Roman province of Judaea.

Ophel Hill was a busy area

right at the foot of the temple,

the city’s religious heart.

[Uzi Leibner] Whoever came from the city had to climb up

through the Ophel in order to reach the Temple Mount.

[Narrator] The Temple in Jerusalem was not just a place

for Jews to gather and pray,

it was considered to be the House of God.

[Uzi] The Jews of the ancient times had only one god

who had only one temple, so obviously this is a focal point,

the quantities of finds here are nothing similar

to any other site I have ever excavated.

[Narrator] Through their excavations here,

Uzi and Orit are trying to reconstruct the religious world

at the time the Dead Sea Scrolls were being written.

But this area has been built over repeatedly since then.

The team must attempt to differentiate

between the many different time periods

represented in this one location.

As they descend through the layers,

they look out for small finds buried in the dirt.

[Uzi] I thought I got something, but I can’t pick it up again.

[Narrator] Uzi uses a metal detector to locate objects

that aren’t immediately visible to the naked eye.

[Uzi] A metal object, okay.

So just give it to Nadav

and tell him to put it on the plan, please.

These coins are made of bronze, they're not cleaned yet,

so we cannot say for sure what coin is it

and exactly from what period.

[Narrator] The exact date written on the coins

isn’t visible.

But the team finds them in a layer

dating to around 2,000 years ago.

These coins may have been used

at the time the Dead Sea Scrolls were being written.

[Uzi] Up to now, we have from the four seasons of excavations

about 1,000 coins.

[Narrator] One coin from the late first century CE

is of particular interest to Uzi.

[Uzi] These are very, very rare. It's a silver coin.

These coins were used as coins for the annual tax

the Jews paid to the temple.

[Narrator] Although the Romans ruled over Judaea,

they allowed the temple authorities

to collect their own tax from the Jewish people.

Many Jews would come to the area around the Temple Mount

before paying it.

[Uzi] People coming up to the Temple needed to fulfill

their needs exchanging money in order to give their half shekel

which has to be given with a specific type of coin.

[Narrator] Around the Temple site,

enterprising Judaeans would charge a fee

to exchange other coins for the silver half shekel

needed to pay the tax.

[Uzi] The temple attracted large sums of money.

We know, not just from the Gospels,

that some people opposed this role of the Temple

as a commercial place, seeing it somehow as defiling the Temple.

[Narrator] Roman writers describe how the debate

over the role of the Temple

caused a great fracture in the Jewish world.

[Uzi] The most detailed description appears

in the writings of Josephus Flavius,

who writes about the Jewish society,

and he explains that the society is divided into different sects.

So, the Phariseeans, which seem to be the largest,

the Sadduceeans, who are a priestly sect,

and the Essenes, who seem to be probably the smallest

and maybe somewhat a marginal sect.

[Narrator] The most outspoken critics

of the way the Temple was run

belonged to this small sect known as the Essenes.

Some Essenes turned their back on Jerusalem altogether

and went to live in remote communities.

[Uzi] Josephus tells us that there are Essenes

in each and every city,

but we know they had some sort of a center

that’s in the desert.

[Narrator] A tantalizing clue comes in the writings

of another Roman historian, Pliny the Elder.

He writes that the Essenes' center was located

on the western coast of the Dead Sea,

the region where the scrolls were found.

Who were this group? And did they hide the scrolls?

[Narrator] Danny Herman is in Qumran

exploring for possible evidence

of an ancient religious sect known as the Essenes.

According to ancient writers,

they were a highly devout branch of Judaism

who chose to live a simple existence.

One community lived near the Dead Sea.

[Danny] This is a very remote part of the Holy Land,

a very difficult area to live in,

it’s very hot, it’s very dry.

[Narrator] Not far from the caves where the scrolls

were found are the remains of an ancient settlement.

[Danny] All of the scrolls were found in 11 caves

revolving around this site.

There’s a lot of questions about this enigmatic location.

[Narrator] Many experts believe it could be

where the people who hid the scrolls lived.

But who they were is a mystery.

[Danny] You don't have a spring at this site,

there's not much protection on the slope,

there are no significant trade routes passing by.

It seems that the people who settled this

wanted to be in an isolated area more than anything else.

[Narrator] The isolation of the site seems to match

the description of the hermit-like Essenes.

Just outside the settlement, Danny locates unusual clues

about the people who lived here.

[Danny] We are on the eastern flank of ancient Qumran,

this area is characterized

by hundreds of markers on the surface.

[Narrator] There are around 1,200 stone markers

dotted across this area.

Beneath the piles of stones,

in pits up to six feet deep,

archaeologists have unearthed around 50 skeletons,

buried with striking uniformity--

laid on their backs with their hands on their hips...

...and their heads pointing south.

With few grave goods,

these are austere burials.

And they are overwhelmingly male.

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Experts estimate most of the graves

date to the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

They differ markedly

from the typical rock-cut tombs of the period.

[Danny] It seems to reflect a big cemetery

of a specific movement; everyone is buried in the same way.

It is an equal community of men that apparently lived here.

[Narrator] This ties in well with ancient descriptions

of the Essenes being a mostly male sect.

And the closeness of the site to the caves is intriguing.

Were the Essenes responsible for hiding the scrolls?

At the John Rylands Library in Manchester, England,

historian Joan Taylor looks for clues in the texts themselves.

Our cameras have unique access as she investigates

what these ancient writings can reveal

about the people who hid them.

[Joan] There's so little that we know about this group,

and how to slot them into a wider history,

understanding of the time, is difficult.

[Narrator] Only seven scrolls were found mostly intact,

and there are over 25,000 smaller fragments.

Joan has special access to 77 fragments

that were gifted to the library.

[Joan] They're not large size pages, they're not columns,

they're these little bits and pieces

that have to be put together.

[Narrator] Piecing them back together

is a near impossible task;

some of the fragments have no visible text on them.

[Joan] Sometimes ink gets rubbed off ancient parchment.

You imagine these pieces were sitting in a cave

for 2,000 years, all sorts of things can happen.

[Narrator] Joan takes one of the samples to be investigated

by Jamie Robinson

at the institute’s specialist imaging lab.

[Jamie Robinson] That does look quite blank,

but let’s see what we can find out.

[Joan] Okay, great.

[Narrator] She hopes their highly sensitive

imaging technology,

which has only become widely available in recent years,

could reveal new information about the fragments.

[Jamie] Okay, so the fragment is under the camera,

the system's been calibrated

so I’m gonna start the capture sequence now.

[Narrator] Jamie uses a 100 million-pixel camera

to capture ultra-high-resolution

photographs of the fragment

under different wave lengths of light.

[Jamie] We use a system called multispectral imaging,

and that can often show us things

that you can’t see with the naked eye.

Okay, so the system's ran through all of the wavelengths

of light, we’ve got the results.

But as we go through this sequence of illuminations,

we're starting in the UV here,

and you can see that it's just black,

so we’re not seeing anything.

[Narrator] Each wavelength of light is a different color

and shows up different features on the fragment.

[Jamie] We’re getting to the infrared now.

[Narrator] The images taken under infrared light

reveal something unexpected.

[Jamie] So you can see...

[Joan] I think I’m starting to see something.

[Narrator] Ink.

[Joan] That’s amazing!

[Jamie] That text has just basically appeared

out of nowhere.

[Narrator] This ancient Hebrew writing has gone unseen

for around 2,000 years.

[Joan] So what I can see there is a shin, a bet, and a tav,

and that’s the word Shabbat, so, the Sabbath.

[Narrator] New pieces of evidence like this could help

shed light on the people of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

[Joan] Shabbat is so intriguing of all the words to be revealed.

It’s just where does this text come from?

It could be from scripture, but it could actually be

from one of the so-called

Sectarian pieces of text as well.

[Narrator] The Sectarian Scrolls are a group of texts

describing the rules of a particular Jewish community.

Joan thinks a Sectarian Scroll called the Community Rule

could help identify who the group were.

[Joan] This particular scroll is very, very interesting

in terms of representing something about the group

that hid the Dead Sea Scrolls.

[Narrator] The scroll details the rules governing

this group’s way of life.

[Joan] They seem to be separated from the rest of Israel

in some way.

It talks about how you have to be exceptionally pure

in order to be part of this group

that were aiming for a particular standard of holiness.

[Narrator] The scrolls' strict religious edicts

align with the picture of the Essenes

provided by ancient historians.

Based on the archaeological evidence at Qumran

and the writings in the scrolls themselves,

Joan believes the Essenes were the people who hid the scrolls.

So who were they?

Can archaeology reveal more about the Essene way of life?

[Narrator] Danny Herman explores Qumran for clues

that may link the site to the Essenes

and reveal what life was like in this period.

Among the ruins are a series of mysterious structures.

[Danny] This is one of 10 similar installations.

Some of these were dug into the ground,

some of them were formed by building walls around them.

[Narrator] Their design holds a clue

about what they were used for.

[Danny] They all have the same features;

they're deep and they have steps leading into them.

But the fact that they all have plaster

indicates that they were for storing water.

[Narrator] Qumran lies in an arid desert-like region,

so reservoirs like this were important structures.

But why would this tiny settlement need 10 reservoirs

for storing water?

The excavations at Ophel Hill

could shed light on this mystery.

As they dig deeper, Orit and the team are uncovering remains

from the Roman period all over the site.

In one area, they discover a structure

sunken into the ground.

[Orit] We were very surprised to find this.

It's an underground installation,

so we need to imagine

that we are in the basement of the structure.

[Narrator] It's remarkably similar to the structures

seen at Qumran.

What was its purpose?

[Worker] Some of this is gonna take a while to clean up.

As you can see, there’s a lot of loose stones.

[Narrator] The structure was backfilled with heavy rocks

in ancient times, so the team must break up and remove

the rocks inside before they can get a closer look.

[Worker] We have this last layer,

and I just gotta take the sledgehammer to it.

[Orit] You’ve done an amazing job here.

[Narrator] With the bulk of the debris cleared,

Orit can now see the features

of this installation more closely.

[Orit] This is very exciting.

The stairs are cut from bedrock

and everything is covered by a thick layer of plaster.

[Narrator] The plaster is similar to that found

lining the reservoirs at Qumran.

Orit believes this structure was for more

than just storing water.

[Orit] We go down using the stairs

to submerge yourself fully.

These were meant for bathing.

[Narrator] The construction quality and size of this bath

makes Orit think it must have been expensive to build.

[Orit] It could be like in a dwelling of a rich person,

but we find it very hard to believe

that this is a residential area.

Since this is a public area, we think that it was built to serve

the thousands of pilgrims who came here,

and this is why it is so large.

[Narrator] Public bathing was popular in the Roman period,

but the closeness of these baths to the Temple

suggests they had a religious purpose.

Orit believes it relates

to the ancient Jewish concept of purity.

Jews in this period believed that being in proximity

to death and decay caused them to become impure.

In order to enter the Temple, worshippers were required

to wash off these so-called impurities.

[Orit] They needed something to differentiate

the normal hygiene process of becoming clean,

and the ritualistic, religious practice of becoming pure.

So they developed this installation

with a stepped basin for ritualistic purification.

[Narrator] The structure is a ritual bath,

one of around 100 found at Ophel Hill.

It provides a hint as to what this area was used for.

With the sacred Temple at its heart,

the Temple Mount was built to host pilgrims

from all over the Jewish world.

Its southern wall had two sets of huge gates

that formed the main entrance to the complex.

A massive stone staircase led up to these gates

taking hundreds of pilgrims into the Temple.

♪ ♪

At the foot of the Mount was Ophel Hill,

an area filled with ritual baths where pilgrims could come

to purify themselves before worshipping at the Temple.

Ritual bathing was a key tenet of ancient Judaism.

It required deep, plastered baths like the ones at Qumran.

[Orit] In Qumran, we have one of the largest concentration

of ritual bath at a site that is outside of Jerusalem.

We can characterize Qumran I think as a site

where purity played a very important role.

[Narrator] These finds help experts to build a picture

of the events that may have led the Essenes to Qumran.

In the 2nd century BCE, the Essene movement emerged

in Jerusalem, devoted to rigorous purity

and daily ritual baths.

Denouncing the priesthood as corrupt,

some Essenes abandoned Jerusalem

and retreated to the wilderness.

Many experts believe they built a secluded settlement

at Qumran, complete with workshops,

dining hall, and a watchtower.

Here in splendid isolation,

they continued their strict rituals

including frequent immersion in ritual baths.

♪ ♪

The Essenes were a pious group

with uncompromising rules about worship and purity.

This could explain why they kept scrolls

filled with scripture and religious treatise.

But did they actually write the Dead Sea Scrolls?

[Narrator] Researchers across the globe have been working

for decades to identify the people

who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls.

At the University of Groningen in the Netherlands,

a team led by Mladen Popovic applies cutting-edge technology

to investigate the scrolls’ origins.

Mladen thinks that precisely dating all of the scrolls

is the key to understanding whether the Essenes wrote them.

[Mladen Popovic] The key questions of the projects--

when were these manuscripts written and who wrote them?

[Narrator] The Essenes emerged in the 2nd century BCE.

If they did write all of the scrolls, the dating should show

that they were all written after that time.

But laboratory dating techniques

like radiocarbon dating require damaging the material.

They cannot be used on all of the priceless scrolls.

[Mladen] We have to be really careful with the scrolls.

These are the oldest documents of the Hebrew Bible,

or the Old Testament.

It’s extremely precious material, and it’s tangible.

[Narrator] So Mladen is pioneering

a new dating technique,

which harnesses the power of artificial intelligence.

He and his team have developed an AI model called Enoch

which can date scrolls based on the handwriting of the text.

[Mladen] What Enoch has learnt to do is associate

a certain style of writing with a certain time period,

and that it can also apply to many, many other manuscripts

that it has not seen before.

[Narrator] Human experts have been dating manuscripts

based on their handwriting for centuries,

but this new AI model supercharges the technique.

[Mladen] Once it is trained, it's able to look at things

much quicker than we do,

at much more data than we are able to do.

[Narrator] Mladen works with AI expert Maruf Dhali

on the project.

[Maruf Dhali] We have trained the Enoch model,

and the model is now optimized, so for any new document now

it takes less than two minutes' time to make a new prediction.

This has never been done before; that’s the beauty of it.

[Mladen] Now we're looking at particular manuscripts 4Q109

of Ecclesiastes, the Book of Ecclesiastes, the Old Testament.

[Narrator] Human handwriting analysts have previously dated

this scroll to between 175 and 150 BCE.

Mladen and Maruf want to know if this estimate holds up.

The Enoch model produces a result in minutes.

[Maruf] This is a plot of all the raw numbers.

So just by seeing this plot, I would say that it is more likely

that this manuscript is written from 300 to 250 BCE.

[Narrator] According to the AI model,

this scroll is about 100 years older than previously thought.

The team has found a similar pattern

with some other scrolls, too.

[Mladen] Many of the texts that we initially or traditionally

thought would be around the 1st century BCE,

maybe 2nd century BCE, turn out to be much older.

These texts predate the site of Qumran, older than all our ideas

about when the Essenes came about.

[Narrator] The results suggest that the Essenes

may not have written these scrolls.

And who did remains a mystery.

[Mladen] It’s a new frontier that we have to explore.

[Narrator] Whilst some scrolls may have been produced

by Essene scribes

writing in a dedicated scriptorium space at Qumran,

others might have been historic artifacts

when they were transported to the site,

and placed in the caves for safekeeping.

If the Essenes were the owners of these older scrolls,

it seems they may have treasured them so dearly

that they wanted to protect them from harm.

[Joan] The Essenes were very, very concerned

with the writings of the ancients.

In these writings, you get the word of God,

the name of God written out.

There is so much sanctity connected with the name of God,

so it was a respectful burial of these scrolls

in these caves around Qumran.

[Narrator] But what threat did the Essenes feel they needed

to hide the scrolls from?

Back at the lab in Jerusalem,

Joe Uziel is examining one of the scrolls.

He believes it could provide a clue

about why they were abandoned.

[Joe] Here we have one copy of the Book of Isaiah.

We see a larger fragment that is composed

of several different fragments put together.

[Narrator] The Book of Isaiah is in the Bible's Old Testament.

It contains a series of prophecies

written in poetic verse.

Joe thinks it had a special significance

to the people of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

[Joe] 21 copies of Isaiah were found,

one of the most common texts found.

And it's most likely that the reason

it was given so much importance is because of the prophecies

given by Isaiah, looking towards the future.

[Narrator] Isaiah was a prophet who lived in Jerusalem

in the 8th century BCE,

his writings are filled with visions of judgement and hope.

He predicted that God would bring about the end times,

starting with the fall of Israel,

followed by Babylon, Egypt, and their neighbors.

The importance of Isaiah in the scrolls

may reflect the group's obsession

with the idea of an imminent end of days event.

[Joan] They're looking ahead to a kind of righteous judgement

in the world, where God is going to act in history

and they’re going to be vindicated.

[Narrator] One possibility is that the Essenes

might have been hiding the scrolls

to protect them from a coming apocalypse.

If so, what might have led them to believe

that the end of days was near?

[Narrator] At Ophel Hill in Jerusalem,

Uzi Leibner and his team are digging in layers

dating to the period that the Dead Sea Scrolls were hidden.

Among the many ritual baths at the site,

they find the remains of a building.

[Uzi] We’re excavating here a monumental structure.

The walls we see around us currently are not the walls

of the ancient building; this is a later building

that was built on top and into the early structure.

[Narrator] They think this structure must have formed

part of the complex for pilgrims

preparing to enter the Temple

around the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

As they dig deeper,

they find a wealth of artifacts among the debris.

[Uzi] This is one of dozens of coins found here.

These bronze coins are for small transactions,

like daily transactions.

On one side of the coin we have a goblet

that was used in the Temple.

[Narrator] The coin dates to the Roman period.

But this is no Roman coin.

The goblet symbol it depicts

is distinctly Jewish.

In the Roman Empire,

minting coins without a depiction of the emperor

on them was highly unusual.

[Uzi] Judaea is a tiny province in a huge, huge empire

presenting itself as independent

and not a dependent of the Roman Empire.

[Narrator] Uzi thinks that this coin is a window

into a critical period in Judaea's history

at the time the Essenes were active.

[Uzi] The sources talk about the Roman governors coming from Rome

to govern Judaea, oppressing the people--

high taxation,

social differences within the Jewish society.

All this built up the tension

which came to a bursting point at the year 66

with the great revolt.

[Narrator] In 66 CE, Jewish rebels rose up.

They declared an independent Jewish state

and seized control of Jerusalem.

To crush the rebellion,

the Romans sent tens of thousands of troops to Judaea,

burning a path of destruction

that in 68 CE led them to the Judaean desert.

This may have been a pivotal moment

in the story of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

[Danny] Romans are advancing and are crushing Jewish resistance

wherever they meet.

We also know from Josephus that the 10th legion,

after the conquests of the north, pass by Jericho.

[Narrator] The city of Jericho

lies just eight miles from Qumran.

In 68 CE, the Romans captured Jericho.

[Danny] You cannot see directly Jericho from here,

but if Jericho burns, you will see the smoke here.

The people who lived here heard of the rumor

that the Romans are coming,

and when they saw the smoke from Jericho,

they realized, we are next.

♪ ♪

[Narrator] As the Romans rampaged through the region

destroying every settlement in their path,

they approached Qumran.

Many experts believe it was at this moment

that the Essenes hid their precious writings in the caves

to protect them from the Roman onslaught.

[Danny] They had enough time to hide

their most valuable belongings, their scriptures,

and run for their lives.

[Narrator] Investigators digging at Qumran find a sudden change

in the archaeology at the site around the year 68 CE,

the same year the Roman 10th legion laid waste

to Jewish settlements throughout the region.

[Danny] There was definitely a destruction

of the Jewish presence and then Roman presence over it.

We don't know if there was even a battle.

It seems that by the time the Romans arrived here,

the local population,

the people of the Dead Sea Scrolls were already gone.

[Narrator] The Romans seized Qumran.

But they never found the scrolls.

♪ ♪

In the sanctuary of the caves, the scrolls remained safe,

until they were rediscovered nearly 2,000 years later.

But if the Essenes left the scrolls there to protect them,

why didn't they return to rescue them

after the danger had passed?

[Narrator] At the site of Ophel Hill in Jerusalem...

[Archaeologist] How deep is that there?

[Uzi] It’s between the stones, I think.

[Narrator] Uzi Leibner and his team continue to excavate

a monumental structure.

This building dates back to the Roman period,

shortly after the Dead Sea Scrolls

are thought to have been hidden.

[Uzi] Gradually we're descending through the later building

and reaching down to the stairs

down there beneath these high standing walls.

[Narrator] When they dig down to the staircase,

they make a shocking discovery.

[Uzi] You can see here the beautiful ashlar stones,

they’re just laying on the stairs all in a collapse.

And in this collapse is lots of pottery vessels,

lots of stone vessels and dozens of coins.

But what we had here were ashes,

we were actually digging in ashes.

[Narrator] This blackened ash suggests a ferocious fire

tore through this building at the foot of the sacred temple.

And this catastrophic collapse could hold more clues.

[Uzi] We have like this capsule of time

that was caught of the destruction,

which is tragic, but for us archaeologists,

it’s very important in order to date and reconstruct.

[Narrator] The coins found among the debris

help Uzi to date the destruction.

[Uzi] The latest coins we had here on the floors

are coins the year 69, 70 CE.

[Narrator] In the year 70 CE,

two years after the destruction of Qumran,

the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem

and burned down the Holy Temple.

For ancient Jews, the Holy Temple in Jerusalem

had been a place uniquely connected with God.

[Uzi] For nearly 1,000 years, the Jews worshipped their god

in the Temple, and one bright morning

in the summer of year 70,

all this raises to the sky in flames,

and the Jews lose their way of connecting to God.

[Narrator] The destruction layers are not limited

to the area around the Temple.

[Uzi] Wherever excavations were carried out,

dramatic evidence of destruction were found all over the city.

[Narrator] Jerusalem was completely destroyed

in the Roman assault.

The attack scarred the Jewish people for generations.

[Uzi] The destruction is seen by the Jews of that era

as an apocalyptic event, maybe the end of days.

[Narrator] The Romans finally suppressed

the first Jewish-Roman war in 73 CE

with the siege of the rebel fortress at Masada.

After the war, historians have no record

of the Essenes at all.

Some experts believe the Essenes were among the rebels

who died at Masada.

[Danny] But one thing is for sure, they did not come back,

'cause the scrolls were left behind, and they didn't survive

the teeth of time, because that movement died out.

[Narrator] But this enigmatic group lives on

in their deep association with the Dead Sea Scrolls.

This season, the team digging at Ophel Hill has unearthed

the buildings that once stood in the Temple’s shadow.

[Uzi] Working in the field,

seeing the things coming out of the ground,

how they’re discovered, is very exciting.

[Narrator] These 2,000-year-old ruins shed new light

on a mysterious Jewish sect

and help to resurrect the world of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

[Joe] We're only at the beginning

of this type of research,

and constantly new avenues of research are being added.

And with the scrolls,

each and every word has something else to teach us.

[Orit] It's a treasure of information and knowledge.

Clearly scholars will write about these scrolls

for many centuries to come.

[Narrator] Archaeologists continue to use

revolutionary technology to decode the origins

of these incredible artifacts.

[Mladen] We've opened the door onto history

by the modern techniques that we're using.

It’s enabling us to ask new questions.

[Narrator] These priceless treasures remain

an unparallelled source of information

on the biblical period.

[Joan] This was something that gives you a window into the time

in which these religions were in formation,

and you get this world that was otherwise unknown.

[Narrator] The Dead Sea Scrolls are only just beginning

to surrender their secrets.