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Re: orion: DSS pottery
Jodi Magness, who is expert concerning the relevant pottery and
archaeology, has described the "scroll jars" differently than some recent
posts. The abstract to her excellent 1996 SBL/ASOR presentation may be read
in the ASOR newsletter, Summer 1996, or at
http://scholar.cc.emory.edu/scripts/ASOR/Program/Abstracts96.html#S154 It
reads, in part: "It also turns out that scroll jars are not attested at
Qumran in any pre-31 B.C.E. contexts. In fact, the presently available
evidence indicates that they are found only in Period II contexts at
Qumran, though excavation photographs and parallels from Herodian Jericho
suggest that they may have appeared during the reign of Herod the Great."
In "The Community at Qumran in Light of Its Pottery" (Annals of
NYAcademy of Sciences, vol.722 , p.41, 1994 conference) Magness wrote, in
part: "The presence of 'scroll jars' at the site of Qumran indicates that
they probably also served as containers for materials other than
scrolls...However, the elongated, cylindrical form of the body suggests to
me that these jars were originally designed to hold scrolls....Aside from
the site and caves at Qumran, the only two published examples of "scroll
jars" known to me come from New Testament Jericho...and Quailba near Abila
(see de Vaux 1973: 54-55, footnote 1). The lids associated with the "scroll
jars"....are also rare at other sites in Judea..."
The one jar found in a salvage dig in tombs near Abila, northern
Jordan were mentioned in de Vaux, Arch. & DSS (as above), Ann.Dept. Antiq.
Jordan 4-5 (1960) 116 (cf. pl V.1), and RevBib 67 (1960) 229. But,
apparently, neither a photograph nor drawing of that jar has been published.
Stephen Goranson goranson@duke.edu