ScienceScienceDailyScientists may have solved a 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls mystery
A Tel Aviv University study suggests the ancient Qumran sect really did use a 364-day calendar, but later abandoned it because it drifted out of sync with the seasons.
Researchers may have solved a long-running mystery surrounding the Dead Sea Scrolls by proposing that the Qumran sect really did use its distinctive 364-day calendar. Its perfectly ordered 52-week system kept holidays on the same weekdays, but it slowly drifted out of sync with the seasons because it was shorter than the true solar year.
A Tel Aviv University study proposes the Qumran sect behind the Dead Sea Scrolls used a 364-day calendar early in its history before eventually abandoning it.
The 364-day year divides perfectly into 52 weeks, keeping festivals on the same day annually, but it falls about one and a quarter days short of the true astronomical year.
The study found that without correction, festivals would drift nearly four weeks in 20 years, eventually shifting spring celebrations into winter, which the sect could not accept.
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