Qumran in the context of "Feast of Wine"

The personification of wisdom, typically as a righteous woman, is a motif found in religious and philosophical texts, most notably in the Book of Proverbs in the Hebrew Bible and other Jewish and Christian texts.

The Greek Septuagint, and both the Qumran and Masada Hebrew versions of Ben Sira conclude with a first-person character speaking in Wisdom's voice as in the Book of Proverbs, though it is not certain that this was not appended to Ben Sira from another work. A less clear personification of Wisdom is also found in the Cave 11 Psalm Scroll.

Linen (/ˈlɪnən/) is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant.

Linen is very strong and absorbent, and it dries faster than cotton. Because of these properties, linen is comfortable to wear in hot weather and is valued for use in garments. Linen textiles can be made from flax plant fiber, yarn, as well as woven and knitted. Linen also has other distinctive characteristics, such as its tendency to wrinkle. It takes significantly longer to harvest than a material like cotton, although both are natural fibers. It is also more difficult to weave than cotton.

The Judaean Desert or Judean Desert (Hebrew: מִדְבַּר יְהוּדָה, romanized: Midbar Yehuda, Arabic: برية الخليل, romanized: Bariyat al-Khalil) is a desert in the West Bank and Israel that stretches east of the ridge of the Judaean Mountains and in their rain shadow, so east of Jerusalem, and descends to the Dead Sea.

The Judaean Desert has historically functioned as a place of refuge for rebels and displaced populations. According to the Hebrew Bible, David took shelter there while fleeing from King Saul. The Hasmonean rulers of Judaea, and their successor, Herod the Great, built several monumental fortresses in the region, including Herodium, Hyrcania, and Masada. In the period of the Jewish–Roman Wars, the desert became a key theater of conflict, with Roman forces besieging major strongholds. Caves in the area, such as the Cave of Letters and the Cave of Horrors, later served as hiding places for Jewish refugees, preserving personal documents, religious texts, skeletons, weapons, clothing, and household items—thanks to the region's arid climate. The desert also attracted religious sects, including the classical-era Jewish ascetics of Qumran (likely Essenes) and Byzantine-era Christian monks who practiced spiritual isolation in local lavras.

The Qumran Caves (Arabic: كهوف قمران Kuhūf Qumrān; Hebrew: מערות קומראן HaMeara Kumran) are a series of caves, both natural and artificial, found around the archaeological site of Qumran in the Judaean Desert. It is in these caves that the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.

Israel Nature and Parks Authority took over the site following the end of the 1967 war, when Israel occupied the West Bank and seized Qumran. Israel has since invested heavily in the area to establish the Qumran caves as a site of "uniquely Israeli Jewish heritage". The caves are recognized in Israel as a National Heritage Site, despite the caves being in occupied Palestinian territories; as such, the designation has drawn criticism.

Ein Feshkha (Arabic: عين فشخة, also Ain Al-Fashka) or Einot Tzukim (Hebrew: עינות צוקים, lit. 'cliff springs') is a 2,500-hectare (6,200-acre) nature reserve and archaeological site on the north-western shore of the Dead Sea, about 3 km (1.9 mi) south of Qumran in the West Bank. It is located just north of the headland Râs Feshkhah, the "headland of Feshkhah". Within the reserve is a group of springs of brackish water. The nature reserve consists of an open section with pools of mineral water for bathing surrounded by high foliage and a section that is closed to visitors to protect the native flora and fauna.

The archaeological site of Khirbet Mazin is located on the shoreline in the southern part of 'Ein Feshkha nature reserve.

Hyrcania (Ancient Greek: Ὑρκανία; Arabic: خربة المرد "Khirbet el-Mird"; Hebrew: הורקניה Horcania) was an ancient fortress in the Judean Desert. It was built by Hasmonean ruler John Hyrcanus or his son Alexander Jannaeus in the 2nd or 1st century BCE (in the Hellenistic part of the Second Temple period). The site is located on an isolated hill about 200 m above the Hyrcania valley, on its western edge. It is in Bethlehem Governorate in Palestine, about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) west of Qumran, and 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) east of Jerusalem.

Initially destroyed by Gabinius, the fortress was rebuilt and greatly expanded by King Herod (r. 37–4 BCE; Roman period). After Herod executed his son Antipater, he was interred there. After Herod's death Hyrcania was abandoned, only to be resettled during the Byzantine period, when a late-5th century monastery named Kastellion was established on the ruined fortress, which remained active until the early 9th century. There was a short-lived attempt by monks to rebuild in the 1920s–30s. The ancient ruins can still be seen today. Until the start of a 2023 archaeological campaign, the site had not yet been thoroughly excavated, and knowledge about the ruins of the site was based on a limited number of test pits.

Roland Guérin de Vaux OP (17 December 1903 – 10 September 1971) was a French Dominican priest who led the Catholic team that initially worked on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He was the director of the École Biblique, a French Catholic Theological School in East Jerusalem, and he was charged with overseeing research on the scrolls. His team excavated the ancient site of Khirbet Qumran (1951–1956) as well as several caves near Qumran northwest of the Dead Sea. The excavations were led by Ibrahim El-Assouli, caretaker of the Palestine Archaeological Museum, or what came to be known as the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem.