Gerald Lankester Harding and Roland de Vaux begin excavations at Cave 1 of the Qumran Caves, where they will eventually discover the first seven Dead Sea Scrolls.
Qumran Caves are a series of caves, both natural and artificial, found around the archaeological site of Qumran in the Judaean Desert of the West Bank. 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.
Gerald Lankester Harding (8 December 1901 – 11 February 1979) was a British archaeologist who was the director of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan from 1936 to 1956. His tenure spanned the period in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered and brought to public awareness. Without his efforts many of the scrolls might have disappeared into private collections never to be seen again.