Israeli Antiquities Authority archaeologist Yuval Peleg is the head district archaeologist for the Jordan Valley.
His excavations at Qumran, conducted mainly from 1993-2004, have brought him into the middle of the debate raging over the Dead Sea Scrolls. He worked alongside fellow archaeologist Yitzhak Magen. The two of them found that the site was not an Essene settlement and that the scrolls were deposited in nearby caves by refugees fleeing the Roman army, after the fall of Jerusalem, in 70 A.D.
Peleg holds an MA in archaeology from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His other archaeological work includes finding a palace of Herod the Great between Jerusalem and Jericho (done between 2004 and 2007) and unearthing a Bronze Age tomb at Hebron in 1998.
He is a fan of Sherlock Holmes and is particularly fond of one of the fictional sleuth’s most famous quotes.
It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.
Peleg shows the quote on a screen at the start of his lectures on Qumran.
