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PHOTO BY ZEV RADOVAN/BIBLEANDPICTURES.COM

A STONE’S THROW from the settlement, the manmade Cave 4 (see arrow) contained the greatest number of the Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts—about 500 different scrolls—which had not been deposited in jars and had disintegrated into approximately 15,000 fragments. Between 1947 and 1956, 11 caves in the vicinity of Qumran were discovered to contain ancient documents—together producing about 900 fragmentary scrolls. Some of the documents portray women as members of the Essene movement.