The Essenes
According to Josephus and Pliny, the writers of the Dead Sea scrolls have been identified as the Essenes. The Essenes were members of a religious sect who, detesting the life of corruption, retired to the hot desert on the shores of the Dead Sea. They abandoned Jerusalem for an austere desert, leading a life of prayer, study, meditation, poverty and charity. Members had to surrender all their properties to the Order as they lived a perfect communal life. Josephus wrote that they were "Communities to perfection." The Essenes settled in Qumran in about the first century B.C. In, 31 A.D. they abandoned their settlement which was destroyed by an earthquake. Thirty years later the same sect returned, repaired their small village and resettled in it. By 68 A.D. the Essenes had all been massacred by Titus'soldiers who where on their way to crush the Jewish revolt in Jerusalem. At the approach of the Roman legions, the Essenes hurriedly hid their most valuable possessions, their Scriptures, in the caves around their settlement and in inaccessible caves high up the side of the nearby cliffs. The desert kept their secret for 2,000 years until their accidental discovery in 1947.
Now famous Dead Sea Scrolls.
The Essenes Ruins or Qumran Deadsea scrolls Breadmaking Caves of Qumran