Warriors once occupied Dead Sea Scrolls site

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.

“Once you put all the archaeological evidence into three dimensions, the solution literally jumps out at you,” said William Schniedewind, chair of Ancient Eastern Mediterranean Studies at UCLA and the project’s principle investigator.