The purpose of Qumran might have been as a covenant renewal site according to a recent article over at mdpi: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/12/8/578
The puzzle of Qumran is why the gathering area is able to accommodate thousands of people, while the housing to support such thousands is not on the site. Maybe instead of being a place where many people lived only a few stayed on location, and then during the Third month many thousands would come where the name of God was utilized to participate in a ceremony that renewed one’s devotion to the Covenant. This ceremony had a long duration:
All members of the sect were obliged year by year to “pass the covenant” (שנה בשנה כול יומי ממשלת בליעל), which is the special covenant between the yaḥad communities and God, and participate in the annual covenant renewal ceremony until the end of the “rule of Belial,” namely until the end of days.
The ceremony itself was a hard test of one’s faith:
A person who participated in the ceremony even though his faith was incomplete “blesses himself in his heart” (יתברך בלבבו) and was damned, as “his spirit shall be destroyed without pardon”, “all the curses of this covenant shall cling to him, and God will set him apart for evil. He shall be cut off from the midst of all the Sons of Light” (1QS II, 11–18), curses that would terrify and deter any member who was not completely sure of the purity of his thoughts. A member of the yaḥad who refused to participate in the ceremony was considered one who “refuses to enter the covenant of God” (מואס לבוא בברית אל), was immediately expelled from the sect and his sentence was decreed: “unclean! unclean! shall he be” all the days of his life, “he shall neither be purified by atonement, nor cleansed by purifying waters, nor sanctified by seas and rivers…” (1QS II, 26–III, 6). This description is consistent with Josephus’ description (J.W. 2.8.8) of the Essenes who were expelled from their communities and wandered the land, miserable and humiliated.
For the young who might join, a special rendition of this ceremony was performed:
However, the recitation of the curses in this ceremony included a very unusual practice that added to the excitement of the event: in each curse, the explicit Tetragrammaton was pronounced, rather than its substitutes Adonai or Elohim.27 In this extraordinary act, intended to instill terror in the hearts of the young, the curses sounded as if God Himself was hurling the curses in the face of anyone who dared to deviate from the straight path. It is quite possible that the priest and the “מבקר of all the camps,” who played a part in the annual convention, were chosen from all the priests and מבקרs of the various congregations to fulfill this role, unless they were the מבקר and priest of Qumran, the main site of the sect.
The article goes on to note that a meal was held in common and that there were on the grounds a Mikvah bathing area designed to accommodate thousands of potential people. The facilities, it is speculated, were paid for with some of the alms people brought, many of which were found on site.
If the ceremony outlined was to be performed until the End of Days, might there be signs of an Essene Revival in the future? Well, at the very least, there is a proposed “Essene Calendar”: https://dsscalendar.org/DSS-Greg.php In case you are out in the desert though, there is also some instruction on how to read the sundial version: