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The North Pole radius is 44mm longer than the South Pole radius. |
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Archaeologists Challenge Link Between Dead Sea Scrolls and Ancient Sect
Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 (CDT) by Thoth
 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.
The
archaeologists, Yizhak Magen and Yuval Peleg of the Israel Antiquities
Authority, reported in a book and a related magazine article that their
extensive excavations turned up pottery kilns, whole vessels,
production rejects and thousands of clay fragments. Derelict water
reservoirs held thick deposits of fine potters’ clay.
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.
He and Dr. Peleg wrote a
more detailed report of their research in “The Site of the Dead Sea
Scrolls: Archaeological Interpretations and Debates,” published this
year. The book was edited by Katharina Galor of Brown, Jean-Baptiste
Humbert of the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem,
and Jürgen Zangenberg of the University of Wuppertal in Germany.
This is by no means the
first challenge to the Essene hypothesis originally advanced by Roland
de Vaux, a French priest and archaeologist who was an early interpreter
of the scrolls after their discovery almost 60 years ago. Other
scholars have suggested that Qumran was a fortified manor house or a
villa, possibly an agricultural community or a commercial entrepôt.
Norman Golb, a professor of
Near Eastern languages and civilization at the University of Chicago
who is a longtime critic of the Essene link, said he was impressed by
the new findings and the pottery-factory interpretation.
“Magen’s a very seasoned
archaeologist and scholar, and many of his views are cogent,” Dr. Golb
said in a telephone interview. “A pottery factory? That could well be
the case.”
Dr. Golb said that, of
course, Qumran could have been both a monastery and a pottery factory.
Yet, he added: “There is not an iota of evidence that it was a
monastery. We have come to see it as a secular site, not one of
pronounced religious orientation.”
For years, Dr. Golb has
argued that the multiplicity of Jewish religious ideas and practices
recorded in the scrolls made it unlikely that they were the work of a
single sect like the Essenes. He noted that few of the texts dealt with
specific Essene traditions. Not one, he said, espoused celibacy, which
the sect practiced.
The scrolls in the caves
were probably written by many different groups, Dr. Golb surmised, and
were removed from Jerusalem libraries by refugees in the Roman war.
Fleeing to the east, the refugees may well have deposited the scrolls
for safekeeping in the many caves near Qumran.
The new research appears to
support this view. As Dr. Magen noted, Qumran in those days was at a
major crossroads of traffic to and from Jerusalem and along the Dead
Sea. Similar scrolls have been found at Masada, the site south of
Qumran of the suicidal hold-out against the Romans.
Dr. Magen also cited
documents showing that refugees in another revolt against the Romans in
the next century had fled to the same caves. He said they were “the
last spot they could hide the scrolls before descending to the shore”
of the Dead Sea.
In the magazine article,
Dr. Magen said the jars in which most of the scrolls were stored had
probably come from the pottery factory. If so, this may prove to be the
only established connection between the Qumran settlement and the
scrolls.
Despite the rising tide of
revisionist thinking, other scholars of the Dead Sea scrolls continue
to defend the Essene hypothesis, though with some modifications and
diminishing conviction.
Copyright: New York Times
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Re: Archaeologists Challenge Link Between Dead Sea Scrolls and Ancient Sect
by nevermore on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 (CDT)
(User Info | Send a Message) | | Excellent article. Would like to know where I can find more Info. on this and other related articles |
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Re: Archaeologists Challenge Link Between Dead Sea Scrolls and Ancient Sect
by Isis on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 (CDT)
(User Info | Send a Message) http://www.thothweb.com/ | Hmmm it is an interesting article, I wonder what Anun has to say about this, I'm sure he's worked on the dead sea scrolls, he'd be better placed than most to offer an opinion.
My understanding of the Essenes is that they were a community in their own right, the priests may well have been celibate, but not all Essenes. I could be mistaken though. |
Re: Archaeologists Challenge Link Between Dead Sea Scrolls and Ancient Sect (Score: 1)
by mabung on Thursday, August 17, 2006 (CDT)
(User Info | Send a Message) | | Logic dictates that if they were all celibate, they would have ceased to exist after 1 generation. |
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