DEAD SEA SCROLLS......Artifacts #6

From the book: "Dead Sea Scrolls - Their history and myths Revealed"  by  John DeSalvo  PhD

ARTIFACTS, CEMETERIES, GRAVES AND CAVES

One way to date the scrolls is to date the artifacts found at Khirbet Qumran. Assuming the people of Qumran had something to do with the scrolls.

Found at Qumran:  pottery, jars, vases, dishes, and artifacts made of wood - wooden bowls, combs, and boxes. Textiles had been found; remember some of the scrolls were wrapped in linen cloths.

Other artifacts include: baskets, stone items, coins, phylactery cases (small leather boxes containing small scrolls with verses of scripture - worn on the head and arms).

All have been dated to within the time of the Essenes around the Dead Sea.

A few explored the Qumran area (but not to any great degree) in the late 1800s. Then the site not being considered important was left alone for 150 years.

Modern archeologists figure the site was occupied in three different periods: figured on three different strata levels. Artifacts in these three strata date to a basic three different eras; 8th to 7th century B.C. - end of Kingdom of Israel age. Then the time when the Essenes occupied the area
and ended in A.D.68.  The third and final period was the time of the second revolt by the Jews against Rome - about A.D. 132-135.

Cemeteries and Graves: three cemetery areas have been found, thought to be in the time of the Essenes. The largest one contains about 1.200 graves. Interesting, no objects of personal belongings have been found in the graves. Most of the bodies found were of men, but a few were found to hold remains of women and children. Each grave was found to be covered with a bed of rocks, and so some believe that the women's and children's remains were from a secondary burial; buried in a later time.
More recent surveys indicate there are actually 6 not 3 cemetery sites.

Eleven Caves:

Cave 1 - 7 intact scrolls, pottery, and fragment MSS.  With the scattered fragments some scholars believe there may have been as many as 80 intact scrolls. The Bedouin cousins some think may have used some scrolls for firewood or sold then on the black-market. Nature may have also disintegrated some of the scrolls. We may never know what happened to them.

Cave 2 - discovered in 1952, a few smashed pottery jars, and fragments of a possible 40 scrolls. Most of these were texts from the Bible and some from apocryphal books.

Cave 3 - discovered in 1952, fragments from jars which add up to 30 one time intact jars. Few scroll fragments were found, maybe from about 25 scrolls. A very unusual copper scroll was discovered, the only one ever found in any of the caves. It was a treasure map of 64 location s where gold and silver were supposed to have been buried.

Cave 4 - discovered in 1954, the most significant find in scroll fragments. The fragments represent over 560 original scrolls. It took archeologists over 6 years to remove all the fragments from this cave.

Cave 5 - discovered in  1952, scroll fragments in very poor condition, and represent 30 original scrolls.

Cave 6 - the Bedouins discovered this cave; a few fragments found, representing about 35 scrolls.

Caves 7-10  -  just a few fragments found.

Cave 11 - the longest scroll was found, this was the Temple Scroll. A Bethlehem cobbler and antique dealer was found to be hiding the scroll in a shoebox, under the floor of his store. This important scroll was recovered from him by the Israel Authorities in 1967.

It is not known if any additional caves still remain to be found and any writings yet to be discovered.

It is also unknown how many were removed by the Bedouins and whether others were sold on the black-market.
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NEXT  THE  COPPER  SCROLL AND  SEARCH  FOR  BURIED  TREASURE.