Jürgen Zangenberg Slide Collection
The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves near the Qumran ruins.
Posted on 08/15/2006 5:09:35 AM PDT by Pharmboy
Jürgen Zangenberg Slide Collection
The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves near the Qumran ruins.
New archaeological evidence is raising more questions about the conventional interpretation linking the desolate ruins of an ancient settlement known as Qumran with the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were found in nearby caves in one of the sensational discoveries of the last century.
After early excavations at the site, on a promontory above the western shore of the Dead Sea, scholars concluded that members of a strict Jewish sect, the Essenes, had lived there in a monastery and presumably wrote the scrolls in the first centuries B.C. and A.D.
Many of the texts describe religious practices and doctrine in ancient Israel.
But two Israeli archaeologists who have excavated the site on and off for more than 10 years now assert that Qumran had nothing to do with the Essenes or a monastery or the scrolls. It had been a pottery factory.
snip...
Dr. Magen and Dr. Peleg said that, indeed, the elaborate water system at Qumran appeared to be designed to bring the clay-laced water into the site for the purposes of the pottery industry. No other site in the region has been found to have such a water system.
By the time the Romans destroyed Qumran in A.D. 68 in the Jewish revolt, the archaeologists concluded, the settlement had been a center of the pottery industry for at least a century. Before that, the site apparently was an outpost in a chain of fortresses along the Israelites’ eastern frontier.
“The association between Qumran, the caves and the scrolls is, thus, a hypothesis lacking any factual archaeological basis,” Dr. Magen said in an article in the current issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
bump for later
Cough, cough.
Of obscure historical importance is a little known fact from the Freemasons. They have used a cipher attributed to the Essenes that is so close to their private degree work that it was once used to train new initiates. My earliest printed copy is from the 1840's and includes a plain text introduction describing the form, structure and and daily ritual habits of this heretofore obscure sect. Of importance is the fact that the group held a significant place in their mysteries a hundred years prior to the discovery of the scrolls. Until then, they were only mere footnotes in histories written by the ancients such as Josephus...
Put that in the Roslyn pipe and smoke it.
Veeerrryyyyy interesting.
;)
Interesting.
Though I don't usually consider the NYSLIMES a dispenser of truth.
Plausible. It is certainly a desolate place currently. Some kind of water system was likely needed for any significant settlement--especially a pottery factory.
Good point. Though I think parts of the settlement were 25-45 feet above the shore of the Dead Sea. I can see why some would call it a mesa. I am from the mesa areas of the SWest, BTW.
Wow. I didn't know that.
Thanks.
Thanks for the ping.
But two Israeli archaeologists who have excavated the site on and off for more than 10 years now assert that Qumran had nothing to do with the Essenes or a monastery or the scrolls. It had been a pottery factory.Thanks for posting this interesting topic. The supposed scriptorium of the supposed monastery (one excavation turned up an inkpot) was once reinterpreted as the dining room of an ancient inn. Since the Essenes are mentioned historically just once, and living in some huts, and not mentioned as particularly numerous, it wouldn't be spectacularly anomalous to conclude that they had nothing to do with the structures at Qumran. For that matter, for other reasons, there's probably not much reason to regard them as having much to do with the Dead Sea Scrolls, either.
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My sense is that they'd taken to calling the inhabitants the "Qumran cult" rather than the Essenes. This due to difficulty in identification, I suppose.
My mind goes to "The Abbey of Gethsemene" near Bardstown, Kentucky. While it is certainly a religious center, it also runs a thriving business to support its religious activities.
Just because a location is one does not rule out its being the other.
Ancient Graves Found at QumranGrave robbers, who presumably saw the archaeologists looking around the area last year, had already plundered the site by the time the formal dig began. Richard Freund of the University of Hartford said the latest discovery challenges previous assumptions about the community and its cemetery of 1,178 graves. The dig's co-director, Israeli archaeologist Magen Broshi, was cautious in characterizing the coffin's occupant. "The only thing we can be certain of is that he was a very affluent man," he said.
by Steve Weizman
Thursday July 26 2001
the area may seem too dry for a "pottery factory" but bear in mind that climate change is nothing new, and 2,000 years ago there was more water in much of the Middle East. It's amazing how many ruins of agricultural settlements that exist in the most bone-dry parts of the desert there.
An Abbey? Guess I was too busy at the Talbott Tavern to know there was an Abbey close by...
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Hirschfeld (as Patrich notes during the debate) is the only one present who doesn't think that Qumran was an Essene site. Magness goes on at length (with some hyperbole) regarding the pottery all being local product. Shanks points out that Qumran isn't far from Jerusalem. Also, pottery was manufactured near the source of the clay. Clay pots were used to transport olive oil, wine, fish, salt (salt? I think they've got some of that at the Dead Sea), and many other products in the ancient world. The level of the Dead Sea was different when Qumran flourished, as docks have been found.The Enigma of QumranThe participants in this discussion, all field archaeologists, are Joseph (Yossi) Patrich, associate professor of archaeology at the University of Haifa; Hanan Eshel, senior lecturer in archaeology at Hebrew University and Bar-Ilan University; Yizhar Hirschfeld, lecturer of classical archaeology at Hebrew University; and Jodi Magness, associate professor of classical and Near Eastern archaeology at Tufts University. BAR editor Hershel Shanks moderates the discussion, which was held in Jerusalem last summer...
HIRSCHFELD: In the chart I show some examples. We should compare only the main building of Qumran because the other buildings at the site are mainly workshops and other facilities that were outside the main building. In country houses throughout the Roman Empire, there is usually a clear separation between the dwelling unit and the workshops or industrial area for agricultural production.
We should compare the part in brown on the plan of Qumran, which is the central square structure, with the plans of the other sites. None is exactly like the other. This is not like in churches, where one can put one church above the other and get an identical pattern. What we have are early Roman structures in Judea which have the same components, including a fortified tower and living quarters around a central courtyard. It's a combination of a well-built courtyard house, sometimes with a [columned] peristyle courtyard [as at Khirbet el-Muraq] and a fortified tower. The tower provides protection for the owner of the estate. I believe that this model is relevant for Qumran...
MAGNESS: I saw the pottery from Qumran. I went through it all. Incidentally, in a discussion after a lecture I gave in 1992, at a New York conference, Pauline Donceel-Voûte admitted that there was very little fine ware at Qumran. She also did something that was very misleading. In her lecture at that same conference, she showed a slide that looked like a pile of sherds of fine ware. She simply took every single fragment of fine ware from Qumran and piled it up, and that was the slide. But if you compare the percentage of fine ware from Qumran with the percentage of fine ware from these other sites, there is a striking difference. There is virtually no fine ware at Qumran, and there are no imports at all. Even at Khirbet Mazin, the Dead Sea port just a little south of Qumran, imported amphorae were found there. Qumran doesn't have a single one. At Jericho, just to the north, there is lots of imported material. It wasn't that fine ware wasn't accessible in the area. If people wanted it, they could buy it. It was around in the immediate vicinity. At Qumran, there are no imports at all. There is very little in the way of local fine ware—no terra sigillata, no Jerusalem painted bowls, no painted Nabatean pottery. I believe all the Qumran pottery was made at the site, but that has to be tested with neutron activation analysis.
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