Review: Qumran Revisted: A Reassessment of the Archaeology of the Site and Its Texts (original) (raw)

Qumran in the Iron Age, with Cross-Temporal Reflections on the Hasmonean and Early Roman Periods

The Woman in the Pith Helmet: A Tribute to Archaeologist Norma Franklin, 2020

While the site of Qumran has been of great interest in connection with the period relating to the depositing of the Dead Sea Scrolls in nearby caves, with the later periods of occupation at the site heavily prioritized, the earlier Iron Age II period of occupation (seventh–sixth centuries BCE) has been relatively neglected. In this paper, the existing evidence for the Iron Age II settlement of Qumran is dealt with thoroughly. The authors propose that in this period Qumran consisted of a rectangular enclosed settlement with a central courtyard, a separate domestic unit, a round cistern and water system, and an industrial area with two pottery kilns. It was clearly not an insignificant cluster of huts, as has recently been suggested. It is demonstrated that it belonged to a string of settlements along the western coast of the Dead Sea. Understanding the structural layout of the Iron Age site is vital because the template of the site was largely maintained in the subsequent Hasmonean resettlement.

Economic Activity, Trade, and Manufacture at Qumran, with a Special Look at Inscriptions and Documentary Text

Pushing Sacred Boundaries in Early Judaism and the Ancient Mediterranean, 2023

Khirbet Qumran has received a disproportionate amount of attention in scholarly discourse for a small, archaeologically poor site geographically removed from large urban centers in late Second Temple period Judaea.1 This is, of course, because of the discovery of the approximately 1,000 fragmentary manuscripts in the nearby caves. The relationship of these scrolls to Khirbet Qumran has been the subject of much debate over the decades. I have stated elsewhere my own position, that the scrolls discovered in the eleven caves are part-and-parcel of the site and must be considered in any interpretation of it. The inhabitants of Qumran in the ��rst century BCE and the ��rst three-quarters of the ��rst century CE were responsible for placing the scrolls in the caves; further, a portion of the people who lived at Qumran were scribes, whose role was the copying, repair, collecting, and storage of the scrolls that were in their care.2 But of course, more than just scribal activities and manuscript collection went on at Qumran. People lived there, which means that they carried on the mundane activities of daily life. As more of the archaeological data from Qumran has become available, it becomes possible to reconstruct a more complete picture of daily life at the site. One important question that has engaged both archaeologists and textual scholars is the question of how much contact the Qumran inhabitants had with the outside world. One of the rhetorical tropes used to describe Qumran is as a "monastery" (a completely inappropriate term for a Jewish settlement), where the inhabitants labored in a "scriptorium" and ate in a "refectory." Some of this language was in fact used by Roland de Vaux, the chief excavator at Qumran; he used the word "scriptorium" to refer to Locus 30, and the word "refectory" 1 It gives me great pleasure to dedicate this article to my dear friend and colleague Jodi Magness. Jodi and I share a long association through the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, and I consider her one of my mentors in archaeology. 2 Sidnie White Crawford, Scribes and Scrolls at Qumran (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2019).

Qumran in Context: Reassessing the Archaeological Evidence - By Yizhar Hirschfeld

Religious Studies Review, 2006

Religious Studies Review / 39 Carthage" (Miles); "Migration and the Metropolis" (Morley); "Germs for Rome" (Scheidel); "Embracing Egypt" (Vout); and "The City of Letters" (Woolf). The collection will be of interest primarily to ancient historians, classicists, and scholars of early Christianity. An excellent bibliography and index are included.

with Joan Taylor: New Photographs of the Qumran Excavations from 1954 and Interpretations of L. 77 and L. 86

Newly discovered photographs taken during the Qumran excavations in 1954, now available on the Palestine Exploration Fund website, can illuminate various problematic issues of the site's history. In this article aspects of Qumran are examined afresh with the aid of the data these photographs provide. The mud-brick, plastered 'blocks' of L.77 and L.86-L.87/L.89 have been interpreted in diverse ways by different Qumran researchers, but it is most likely that these features had different functions within each separate spatial context, since those of L.77 are much lower than those of L.86 and L.89. In a new photograph, the top of the central block in L.86 appears to have had a slight hollow. The blocks are not the bases for palm-log roof supports, since the fall of the burnt wood on the Period Ib floor in L.86 — now evidenced in a new photograph — indicates that the flat roofs at Qumran were constructed with beams running across the widths of rooms, with palm logs laid on top.

Qumran Period I Reconsidered: An Evaluation of Several Competing Theories

Dead Sea Discoveries, 2015

The study of Qumran is riddled with many problems, one of which is the absence of clear, unambiguous evidence for the architectural development of the site. As a result, there are several competing hypotheses regarding the architectural layout of Qumran in its earliest Second Temple phase and regarding its development during the course of the 1st century B.C.E. The recent publication of two new models of development attests to the continued significance of this question. At the same time, the existence of multiple models raises a methodological red flag, which forces us to reconsider this whole issue. Accordingly, this paper, without delving into the contentious question of the site's interpretation, offers an objective assessment and critique of the major models of development that have been proposed, and it highlights the shortcomings and assumptions underlying these theories. From this evaluation, it emerges that while some hypotheses can be ruled out via a thorough analysis of the archaeological evidence, others can neither be proven nor disproven. Consequently, this paper concludes that Qumran Period I remains, to an extent, unknowable.

New Photographs of the Qumran Excavations from 1954 and Interpretations of L.77 and L.86

Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 2011

Newly discovered photographs taken during the Qumran excavations in 1954, now available on the Palestine Exploration Fund website, can illuminate various problematic issues of the site's history. In this article aspects of Qumran are examined afresh with the aid of the data these photographs provide. The mud-brick, plastered 'blocks' of L.77 and L.86-L.87/L.89 have been interpreted in diverse ways by different Qumran researchers, but it is most likely that these features had different functions within each separate spatial context, since those of L.77 are much lower than those of L.86 and L.89. In a new photograph, the top of the central block in L.86 appears to have had a slight hollow. The blocks are not the bases for palm-log roof supports, since the fall of the burnt wood on the Period Ib floor in L.86-now evidenced in a new photograph-indicates that the flat roofs at Qumran were constructed with beams running across the widths of rooms, with palm logs laid on top.