Dead Sea Scrolls deciphered: esoteric code reveals ancient priestly calendar

About 1,000 Dead Sea Scrolls discovered just over 70 years ago near Khirbet Qumran on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea have been officially published since the turn of the millennium. But in the case of some, all that was left were poorly preserved remains of texts written in a cryptic script – and all that had been released to the world were photos of small pieces of manuscript, in a preliminary order. There have been previous attempts to decipher them, though we were left with substantial gaps in our understanding of what they contained.