The Virtual Qumran Project

Status Update on the Virtual Qumran Project: 13 Mar, 2002

The Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature has been awarded a grant by the Dorot Foundation to develop a Virtual Qumran tour on the Orion web site.

Virtual Qumran (VQ) will provide information about the Dead Sea Scrolls and the new picture they offer of Jews, Judaism and the origins of Christianity during the formative Second Temple period. This will be an educational resource for high school and college students, teachers, and the general public. The information will be presented in an entertaining format and will include scans of scroll fragments, artifacts, maps, a timeline and pictures with captions.

VQ will be organized as an on-line tour of the caves and archeological site at Qumran that will replace the current Caves Tour. The visitor will be able to enter the caves, buildings and other installations (water cisterns, cemeteries, etc.) where he or she can learn about the activities conducted there and the people engaged in them.

At the pottery workshop, for example, the visitor will be able to compare the pottery made at Qumran with that from other sites, learn about the life styles and beliefs of different communities and about modern scientific techniques of pottery analysis, including neutron activation of the clay in nuclear reactors. During the visit to the communal hall, the visitor will get a sense of communal meetings, meals, study, and worship, while learning about competing institutions of Second Temple Judaism - including the Jerusalem Temple and the fledgling synagogue.

The VQ tour will be fully co-ordinated with the scholarly pages of the Orion web site, providing additional resources for those who wish to pursue a specific topic in greater detail. The tour and expanded Orion web site reflect the most up-to-date academic research on the Dead Sea Scrolls, which is the hallmark of the Orion Center.

As development on the site continues we will try to keep you updated.