Qumran
Qumran is an archaeological site in the West Bank managed by Israel's Qumran National Park. It is located on a dry marl plateau about from the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, about south of the historic city of Jericho, and adjacent to the modern Israeli settlement and kibbutz of Kalya.
The Hellenistic period settlement was constructed during the reign of Hasmonean leader John Hyrcanus or somewhat later. Qumran was inhabited by a Jewish sect of the late Second Temple period, which most scholars identify with the Essenes; however, other Jewish groups were also suggested. It was occupied most of the time until and was destroyed by the Romans during the First Jewish–Roman War, possibly as late as 73 CE. It was later used by Jewish rebels during the Bar Kokhba revolt. Today, the Qumran site is best known as the settlement nearest to the Qumran Caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were hidden, caves in the sheer desert cliffs and beneath, in the marl terrace. The principal excavations at Qumran were conducted by Roland de Vaux in the 1950s, and several later digs have been carried out.
Since the 1967 Six-Day War, Qumran has been managed by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.
History
Since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947–1956, extensive excavations have taken place in Qumran. Nearly 900 scrolls were discovered. Most were written on parchment and some on papyrus. Cisterns, Jewish ritual baths, and cemeteries have been found, along with a dining or assembly room and debris from an upper story alleged by some to have been a scriptorium as well as pottery kilns and a tower.Many scholars believe the location was home to a Jewish sect, probably the Essenes. But, according to Lawrence Schiffman, the rules of the community, its heavy stress on priesthood and the Zadokite legacy, and other details indicate a Sadducean-oriented sect either distinct from or one of the various Essene groupings. Others propose non-sectarian interpretations, some of these starting with the notion that it was a Hasmonean fort that was later transformed into a villa for a wealthy family, or a production center, perhaps a pottery factory or something similar.
Qumran cemeteries
A large cemetery was discovered to the east of the site. Besides this primary cemetery, there are also three separate extensions of it, as well as the north cemetery and a cemetery south of Wadi Qumran.While most of the graves contain the remains of males, some females were also discovered, though some burials may be from medieval times. Only a small portion of the graves were excavated, as excavating cemeteries is forbidden under Jewish law. Over a thousand bodies are buried at Qumran cemetery. One theory is that bodies were those of generations of sectarians, while another is that they were brought to Qumran because burial was easier there than in rockier surrounding areas.
The scrolls were found in a series of eleven caves around the settlement, some accessible only through the settlement. Some scholars have claimed that the caves were the permanent libraries of the sect, due to the presence of the remains of a shelving system. Other scholars believe that some caves also served as domestic shelters for those living in the area. Many of the texts found in the caves appear to represent widely accepted Jewish beliefs and practices, while other texts appear to speak of divergent, unique, or minority interpretations and practices. Some scholars believe that some of these texts describe the beliefs of the inhabitants of Qumran, who may have been Essenes, or the asylum for supporters of the traditional priestly family of the Zadokites against the Hasmonean priest/kings. A literary epistle published in the 1990s expresses reasons for creating a community, some of which resemble Sadducean arguments in the Talmud. Most of the scrolls seem to have been hidden in the caves during the turmoil of the First Jewish–Roman War, although some of them may have been deposited earlier.
Discovery and excavation
Early site analysis
The site of Khirbet Qumran had been known to European explorers since the 19th century. The initial attention of the early explorers was focused on the cemetery, beginning with de Saulcy in 1851. In fact, the first excavations at Qumran were of burials in the cemetery, conducted by Henry Poole in 1855 followed by Charles Clermont-Ganneau in 1873.Albert Isaacs, British counsel James Finn, and photographer James Graham visited Qumran in December 1856. Isaacs stated regarding Qumran's tower, "It can hardly be doubted that this formed a tower or stronghold of some kind. The situation is commanding, and well adapted for defensive operations." Finn later suggested Qumran was "some ancient fort with a cistern".
The British scholar Ernest William Gurney Masterman visited Qumran on several occasions between 1900 and 1901. After observing the positioning of Qumran atop a plateau overlooking the ‘Ein Feshkha Springs, he concluded the ruins "may have very well been once a small fortress". Masterman also questioned why a small fort would require a graveyard of over one thousand tombs.
Gustaf Dalman visited Qumran in 1914, and explicitly identified Qumran as a burg, or fort. Archaeologist Michael Avi-Yonah agreed with Dalman's identification of Qumran as a fort and published a map that identified the remains at Qumran as part of a string of fortresses along the southeastern Judean border.
Major excavations
The discovery of the first Dead Sea scrolls was made by bedouins of the Ta'amireh tribe. Full-scale work at the site began after Roland de Vaux and Gerald Lankester Harding in 1949 excavated what became known as Cave 1, the first scroll-bearing cave. A cursory surface survey that year produced nothing of interest, but continued interest in the scrolls led to a more substantial analysis of the ruins at Qumran in 1951. This analysis yielded traces of pottery closely related to that found in Cave 1. This discovery led to intensive excavations at the site over a period of six seasons under the direction of De Vaux. The most-prized find at Qumran up to this time were three small juglets containing over five-hundred silver coins, which were found in a room on the west side of the monastery. They consisted of tetradrachmae that had been minted in Tyre at various times in the first-century BCE.The Iron Age remains at the site, which were modest but included a LMLK seal, led de Vaux to identify Qumran as the City of Salt listed in Josh 15:62. The site, however, may be identified with Secacah, which is referenced in the same area as the City of Salt in the Book of Joshua 15:61. Secacah is mentioned in the Copper Scroll, and the water works of Secacah that are described in this source are consistent with those of Qumran. The excavations revealed that after the Iron Age, Qumran was principally in use from the Hasmonean times until some time after the destruction of the temple by Titus in 70 CE. De Vaux divided this use into three periods:
- Period I, the Hasmonean era, which he further divided in two:
- * Period Ia, the time of John Hyrcanus
- * Period Ib, the latter Hasmoneans, ending with an earthquake and fire in 31 BCE
- Period II, the Herodian era, starting in 4 BCE on up to the destruction of the site apparently at the hands of the Romans during the Jewish War
- Period III, a reoccupation in the ruins
The site that de Vaux uncovered divides into two main sections: a main building, a squarish structure of two stories featuring a central courtyard and a defensive tower on its north-western corner; and a secondary building to the west. The excavation revealed a complex water system that had supplied water to several stepped cisterns, some quite large, located in various parts of the site. Two of these cisterns were within the walls of the main building.
Both the buildings and the water system evince signs of consistent evolution throughout the life of the settlement. with frequent additions, extensions and improvements. The water channel was raised to carry water to newer cisterns farther away and a dam was placed in the upper section of Wadi Qumran to secure more water, which was brought to the site by an aqueduct. Rooms were added, floors were raised, pottery ovens relocated and locations were repurposed.
De Vaux found three inkwells at Qumran and over the following years more inkwells have come to light with a Qumran origin. Jan Gunneweg identified a fourth. S. Steckoll found a fifth. Magen and Peleg found a sixth inkwell. Without counting the Ein Feshkha inkwell or others with debated provenance, that number is more inkwells than found at any other site of the Second Temple Period, a significant indication of writing at Qumran.
De Vaux's interpretations
De Vaux interpreted his findings at Qumran based upon information in the Dead Sea Scrolls—which continued to be discovered in the nearby caves throughout his excavations. De Vaux concluded that the remains at Qumran were left by a sectarian religious community. Using his excavations as well as textual sources, including the Dead Sea Scrolls and the historical accounts recorded by Pliny the Elder, Philo, and Flavius Josephus, de Vaux's conclusion was that the inhabitants of the site were a sect of highly ritualistic Jews called the Essenes, a conclusion that has come to be known as the "Qumran–Essene hypothesis". This hypothesis suggests that the original residents of the settlement were the Essenes, and that they established the site in the desert for religious purposes.He interpreted the room above locus 30 as a "scriptorium" because he discovered inkwells there. A plastered bench was also discovered in the remains of an upper story. De Vaux concluded that this was the area where the Essenes could have written some of the Dead Sea Scrolls. De Vaux also interpreted locus 77 as a "refectory", or a community dining hall, based on the discovery of numerous sets of bowls in the nearby "pantry" of locus 89. Additionally, de Vaux interpreted many of the numerous stepped cisterns as "miqva’ot", or Jewish ritual baths, due to their similarity to several stepped and partitioned ritual baths near the Jerusalem Temple Mount.
Regarding the scrolls de Vaux cautiously stated that "manuscripts were copied in the scriptorium of Qumran... We may also suppose... that certain works were composed at Khirbet Qumran. But beyond this we cannot go." He believed that the Essenes later hid the scrolls in the nearby caves when they felt their safety was in danger.
Roland de Vaux died in 1971 without having provided a full report on the excavations at Qumran. In 1986 the École Biblique appointed the Belgian archaeologist Robert Donceel to the task of publishing the final results of de Vaux's excavations. Preliminary findings were presented at a conference in New York in 1992, but a final report never eventuated. According to Pauline Donceel-Voûte the final report was impossible to write, because many artifacts had been lost or corrupted To fill the gap, the École had a synthesis of de Vaux's field notes published in 1994. This volume included several hundred photographs, 48 pages of measurement, and summary descriptions of the field diaries. An English translation of the field notes synthesis was published in 2003. Two later books, devoted to the interpretation of the excavations of de Vaux, were published by Jean-Baptiste Humbert in 2003 and 2016. However, not all of de Vaux's archaeological findings from Qumran have yet been published; some are still inaccessible to scholars and the public.