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Re: orion The Diverse Cemetery of Qumran
On 5/26/98 S. Peterson wrote:
>As far as I was aware, in reading de Vaux's notes, there was no mention of
any
>coffins. At most, some graves appeared to have some substance that might
have
>been wood dust. I checked this after Vermes spoke at the 50th anniversary
>Conference last Summer in Jerusalem.
You are correct! According to Hanan Eshel, de Vaux and Steckoll discovered
coffin nails in some of the excavated graves but no wood. Eshel and Magness
both believe that the wood disintegrated. For more on this see the Jan/Feb.
1998 issue of BAR.
>My own reading of the notes (Humbert, 1997) indicates that there is less
>information about the cemetery than has previously been thought.
This is not surprising considering the small number of graves excavated and
the lack of published material on the excavations.
>Ground penetrating radar is in its infancy; perhaps in ten years we will be
able
>to assess the dimensions of the skeletons in the cemetery at Qumran, and
there
>actually will be something we can say about a community that lived there
(or, as
>one published hypothesis has it, the regiment that was buried there, all on
one
>day.
Given the political climate of Israel it is unlikely that the cemetery at
Qumran will be excavated in the near future or at all. Having said that,
let us hope that science continues to perfect non-intrusive tools such as
ground penetrating radar.
Ian Werrett
MA Candidate
Trinity Western University
-----Original Message-----
From: Sigrid Peterson <petersig@ccat.sas.upenn.edu>
To: orion@mscc.huji.ac.il <orion@mscc.huji.ac.il>
Date: Tuesday, May 26, 1998 3:55 PM
Subject: Re: orion The Diverse Cemetery of Qumran
>
>According to Ian Werrett:
>>
>> On 5/26/98 S. Pfann wrote:
>>
>> >As I pointed out in my paper at the FALL ASOR MEETING (this should be in
>> >print soon), the cemetery at Qumran had been carefully segregated into
>> >two sections, representing different settlements:
>> >that they had to be carried a distance).
>
>Ian Werrett replied
>>
>> I apologize in advance for my ignorance if I have missed part of this
>> conversation but I am confused.
>>
>> How are you able to make these generalizations about the cemetery when
only
>> 45 (36 by de Vaux and 9 by Steckoll) out of some 1100 or so graves have
been
>> excavated?
>
>The first 20 of de Vaux's cemetery excavations did not note the gender of
the
>remains, according to Humbert's publication of de Vaux's notes. Later,
perhaps
>using a photgraph, de Vaux identified one skeleton as female.
>
>None of the excavated graves contained a family group. There were two
occasions
>of two men being buried together; one of a woman with an infant, and one of
a
>woman and child, I believe. (My notes are in my office; I write this at
home
>after a day at the dentist.)
>
>As far as I was aware, in reading de Vaux's notes, there was no mention of
any
>coffins. At most, some graves appeared to have some substance that might
have
>been wood dust. I checked this after Vermes spoke at the 50th anniversary
>Conference last Summer in Jerusalem.
>
>My own reading of the notes (Humbert, 1997) indicates that there is less
>information about the cemetery than has previously been thought.
>
>To be explicit, de Vaux's later statements about the gender of the
skeletons in
>the cemetery are not based on his notes, as published by Humbert. Thus,
>statements in a variety of summaries about Qumran and the community
associated
>with Qumran, that are based on de Vaux's assessment of gender of skeletons,
have
>little basis in the data available to me last fall, when I checked into
this.
>
>> I appreciate your use of DSS material to bolster your hypothesis, (1QTa
>> XLVIII 12-14), however, I am interested to know if you are also utilizing
>> additional archaeological information which I am unaware of.
>
>So would I. The only possibility that occurs to me is that de Vaux's photos
of
>the skeletons in situ survived, and that some forensic anthropologist has
been
>bold enough to determine gender from comparative measurements based on
>photographs of intact skeletons. However, many of the skeletons were not
intact;
>burials were sometimes interments of bones, or reburials, judging from the
>positions of the bones.
>
>The better information about women at Qumran will come from materials such
as
>spindles and/or spindle whorls at the main Qumran site, as well as
reanalysis of
>the sectarian texts. The celibacy model seems to be based on Josephus plus
the
>Laura monasteries that came later, and otherwise seems to depend on de
Vaux's
>developing projection onto the cemetery data.
>
>Ground penetrating radar is in its infancy; perhaps in ten years we will be
able
>to assess the dimensions of the skeletons in the cemetery at Qumran, and
there
>actually will be something we can say about a community that lived there
(or, as
>one published hypothesis has it, the regiment that was buried there, all on
one
>day.
>
>>
>> Ian Werrett
>> MA Candidate
>> Trinity Western University
>
>Sigrid Peterson University of Pennsylvania petersig@ccat.sas.upenn.edu
>