Friday, July 13, 2007

Qumran warriors

From LiveScience, we hear that the ruins at Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, was in fact originally a fortress.

Fierce warriors once occupied the famous complex where the Dead Sea Scrolls were written, new research suggests.

Ruins of the Qumran site—in the present-day West Bank—resemble a monastery, but scholars have argued over its uses before the religious sect who penned the scrolls moved in somewhere between 130 and 100 B.C.

Using the world's first virtual 3-D reconstruction of the site, historians recently found evidence of a fortress that was later converted into its more peaceful, pious function.
I have to say, it is pretty neat to see these virtual 3-D reconstructions of ancient sites. This isn't the first site I've seen reconstructed like this, and it's always intriguing to visualize how people used to live. I'm hoping folks like Mike Aquilina will hop on this story and see if there's anything more to it.