The Dead Sea Scrolls are probably the most significant archaeological discovery of the twentieth century. More than 800 ancient documents, written on papyrus and parchment, were found in 1947 in desert caves at Qumran, near the Dead Sea. The texts mainly date from between the last century BCE and the first century CE and are comprised of three types of document: copies of books from the Hebrew Bible; apocryphal manuscripts; and documents pertaining to the beliefs and practices of a sectarian community. The former category is arguably of the greatest academic significance, as documents such as a complete copy of the Book of Isaiah enabled historians to analyse the accuracy of Bible translations. However, the secrecy of the scholars appointed by the Israeli Antiquities Authority, and their slow rate of publication, were the subject of international controversy. In 1991, the Huntington Library made photographic images of the full set of scrolls finally available to all researchers. While the scrolls’ importance is indisputable, there is no consensus over the texts’ origins. The traditional view is that the scrolls belonged to an ascetic Jewish sect, widely believed to be the Essenes. The Essenes’ rules and doctrines are even seen by some scholars as a precursor to Christianity. A competing theory holds that the documents are sacred texts belonging to various Jewish communities, hidden in the caves for safekeeping around 68CE, during the unsuccessful Jewish Revolt against the Romans in Jerusalem.