The interest in the scrolls with the hope of money from their sale initiated a long area-wide search by the Ta'amireh to find more such scrolls, the first result of which was the discovery of four caves in Wadi Murabba'at about 15 kilometers south of Qumran in 1951. In the Qumran area another cave was discovered, now referred to as Cave 2Q (1Q was the first scroll bearing cave), in February 1952. However, only a few fragments were found in the cave. Fear of the destruction of archaeological evidence with the discovery of caves by the Bedouin led to a campaign by the French and American Schools to explore all other caves to find any remaining scrolls. Although 230 natural caves, crevices and other possible hiding places were examined in an 8 kilometer area along the cliffs near Qumran, only 40 contained any artifacts and one alone, 3Q, produced texts, the most unusual being the Copper Scroll.

4Q was discovered in September 1952 by the Ta'amireh. De Vaux, on being offered a vast amount of fragments, contacted Harding who drove the Qumran site to find that the Bedouin had discovered caves very near the Qumran ruins. These were Caves 4Q, 5Q, and 6Q, the most important of which was 4Q which originally contained around three-quarters of all the scrolls found in the immediate Qumran area.[6] The first two of these caves had been cut into the marl terrace. The third was at the entrance to the Qumran Gorge just below the aqueduct.

In 1955 a survey of the terrace brought to light a staircase leading down to the remains of three more artificial caves, 7Q, 8Q and 9Q at the end of the Qumran esplanade, all of which had collapsed and had been eroded, and a fourth cave, 10Q, on the outcrop which housed Caves 4Q & 5Q.

The last cave containing scrolls to be found, once again by the Ta'amireh, was 11Q. Among its contents was the Temple Scroll, though it had been spirited away and its recovery was to prove long and complex.

Selected MS

It is hard to select just a few of the outstanding discoveries or the mss showing the most scholarly interest, so the following is a personal snapshot:

Damascus Document (CD and 4QMMT - 4Q394-9)
The War Scroll (1QM)
The Temple Scroll (11QT)
The Habbakkuk Pesher (1QpHab)
The Community Rule (4QS)
The Book of Giants (4Q530/531) (Fragment missing from Ethiopic Enoch)
The Seductress (4Q184) and other Sapiential works

Note that the mss are preceded by the cave number in which they were discovered and then 'Q' for Qumran, not forgetting that there were other discoveries in the Judean desert, largely published in 40 volumes in the series 'Discoveries in the Judean Desert' or 'DJD' as it is commonly annotated.