[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: SV: orion Qumran habitation dates
In a message dated 98-04-01 09:08:37 EST, Greg Doudna wrote:
<< For example, De Vaux
set a date for rehabitation at the time of Archeleus based on a find of
an Archeleus coin. But the logic is faulty, for the Archeleus coin may
have been dropped by someone in the 60's CE, and have nothing whatever
to do with anyone at Qumran in the time of Archeleus. J. Magness has
offered alternative dates, but I question, e.g. Magness's basis for
assuming that Qumran was inhabited at 31 BCE. >>
However, based on the recent publication of the coins in Die Ausgrabungen von
Qumran und En Feschcha, IA, edited by Rohrhirsch and Hofmeir (1996), there was
not one coin of Herod Archelaus found, but 15--followed by 110 coins of the
procurators and 83 of Agrippa I. This is far too many coins to be recovered
from an uninhabited site of the size of Qumran. I don't think De Vaux can be
criticized for concluding that Qumran was occupied continuously during this
period. (Elsewhere I have questioned his assumption of an interruption in
occupation during the reign of Herod I and his dating of the fall of Qumran to
the Romans in 68, but continuous occupation during the 1st century CE seems
secure.)
Robert Leonard