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Re: orion The Diverse Cemetery of Qumran
> DeVaux's choice of graves was not random. He selected tombs over broad
> areas of all sections of the cemetery. He also targetted graves which,
> according to form or orientation seemed anomalous. Although a thorough
> excavation of all tombs would be optimal but this will never happen.
> However this is not entirely necessary (even if ground piercing radar
> will never be sufficient for the task).
I can't help wondering why he would target graves that seemed
anomalous in order to find out about the usual practices of whoever
did the burying.
> Just think about it, if one were to go into a vegetable field (with a
> similar green top for each plant) and he would roam the field pulling up
> 24 of these plants by the roots and he found that each one was a carrot,
> shouldn't he conclude that he was in a carrot patch?
> Similarly, if he did the same in a nearby field (which had slightly
> different plant tops) and found turnips shouldn't he conclude he was in
> a turnip patch?
And of a couple of them looked like weeds and he pulled up only
those, he would suspect it was nothing more than a weed patch, right?
According to the paragraph above, that would appear to be something
akin to what de Vaux did. I'm hoping you can help me understand his
rationale here.
Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"Now I have $2736.15. Every time I count my $500,
I get a different amount."