Footnote 3 – Essene Origins: Palestine or Babylonia?
Consistent with this theory, there may well have been other centers of Essenes in Palestine. Some scholars contend they have found archaeological evidence of Essene occupation on Mount Zion (see Bargil Pixner, “An Essene Quarter on Mt. Zion?” Studia Hierosolymitana in onore di P. Bellarmino Bagatti, Studium Biblicum Franciscanum Collectio Maior. N. 22–23 Vol. I Studi Archeologici, [Franciscan Printing Jerusalem, 1979], pp. 245–284), and at Haifa (see Stephen Goranson, “On the Hypothesis that Essenes Lived on Mt. Carmel,” Revue de Qumran, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp. 563–567, 1978.) (Josephus notes that the Essenes “occupy no one city, but settle in large numbers in every town.” (The Jewish War 11, 122–128 (4)).