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Re: SV: orion Qumran habitation dates (2nd Ap.1)

Greg,
	I received your second post today (Apr. 1) right after sending my
response to your first. Here I'll add a brief second response, in case you
choose to answer both of them together.
	Your response mentioned coins (other than the hoard). But coins
found outside sealed loci are not the most reliable dating indicators. And,
as D. Ariel has demonstrated (in a Hebrew U. MA thesis and a SBF Liber
Annuus article previously cited on orion)--which other archaeologists have
confirmed at many Judaean sites--coin production varied greatly: Alexander
Jannaeus minted many more per year than Herod the Great; and the coins of
the former stayed in circulation a long time. And what if all the coins
found were too corroded to identify? Or what if the Qumran excavators had
lost all of them without publishing any? Would archaeologists have no
evidence to use for dating?
	What about pottery dating, for example? And aren't the many dishes
covered by earthquake debris an indication of habitation just before the 31
BCE earthquake? J. Magness most assuredly did not base her dating on merely
one coin--or merely on coins. I am, honestly, surprised that your post only
mentioned coins--though, to try to keep things clear, you didn't
necessarily say that only coins matter.
	You have, obviously, read about other types of dating evidence than
coins. E.g., what about radiocarbon dating of the date palm wood beam, used
in (re)building Qumran? (I admit, I don't have that recalibrated date at
hand at the moment.) What about, e.g.,  paleography of ostraca found at the
site? The graves (do you date them to Alexander or to 60s CE times)?
Continuity of use in loci? Expansion of the site? Pliny? Scroll and cave
links?
sincerely,
Stephen Goranson
goranson@duke.edu

Greg Doudna wrote:
>By an oversight, I failed to acknowledge Stephen Goranson as the author
>of the post with questions to which I was responding concerning Qumran
>habitation dates.  To add a further comment:
>[....]