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Re: orion: DSS pottery
Pottery in relatively poorly excavated sites such as Qumran is
notoriously difficult to date: especially if both an a quo and an ad
quem is desired. Not all similar pottery is contemporary.
That a few similar jars have been found as far away
as Abila and as close as Jericho does not help. Getting excited about
whether they belong to period 1 or 2 on the basis of De Vaux's notes,
is a terrible waste of energy. Not only are you dealing with only one
pot, but the entire strategy of distinguishing strata at Qumran was
inadequate for its purposes.
Whether the pottery is local -- and thus open to speculation as to whether it was created
for scroll deposit -- though surely unlikely, absent evidence for
scrolls at Abila and Jericho, can be easily and relatively cheaply
established by identifying the source of the pottery's clay.
Thomas
Thomas L. Thompson
Professor, University of Copenhagen
>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
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