The cemeteries of Qumran and celibacy: Confusion laid to rest?

Dead Sea Discoveries

Volumn 7, Issue 2, 2000, Pages 220-253

  Zias, Joseph E ^a  

^a HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM   (Israel)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 61149365521     PISSN: 09290761     EISSN: 15685179     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/156851700509931     Document Type: Review

References (114)

1. H. Shanks, "Blood on the Floor at New York," BARev 19/2 (March/April 1993) 63-68
2. While Philo and Josephus discuss the Essenes, they never refer in specific geographical detail to the community west of the Dead Sea as Pliny and Dio Chrysostom do (M. Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism [Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1974] 1.538-40
3. G. Vermes and M.D. Goodman, The Essenes According to the Classical Sources (Oxford Centre Textbooks 1; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989])
4. According to Emanuel Tov in a seminar 10 November 1999 on "The Greek Texts from the Judaean Desert," sponsored by the Orion Center, the estimated number of documents from Qumran is presently about 850
5. N.H. Richardson, "Some Notes on IQSa," JBL 76 (1957) 108-22
6. R. Hachlili, "Burial Practices at Qumran," RevQ 16 (1993) 247-65
7. O. Rohrer-Ertl, F. Rohrhirsch, D. Hahn, "Über die Grabenfelder von Khirbet Qumran, insbesondere die Funde der Campagne 1956," RevQ 19 (1999) 3-47
8. H. Stegemann, The Library of Qumran: On the Essenes, Qumran, John the Baptist, and Jesus [ET; Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans; Leiden: Brill, 1998) 193-98
9. L. Elder, "The Woman Question and Female Ascetics Among Essenes," BA 57 (1994) 220-34
10. Z.J. Kapera, "Some Remarks on the Qumran Cemetery," Methods of Investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Khirbet Qumran Site: Present Realities and Future Prospects (eds M.O. Wise, N. Golb, J.J. Collins, and D. Pardee; Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 722; New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1994) 97-113
11. E. Schuller, "Evidence for Women in the Community of the Dead Sea Scrolls," Methods of Investigation (eds M.O. Wise et al.), 252-65
12. É. Puech, "The Necro-polise s of Khirbet Qumran and Ain el-Ghuweir and the Essene Belief in Afterlife," BASOR 312 (1998) 21-36
13. J. Taylor, "The Cemeteries of Khirbet Qumran and Women's Presence at the Site," DSD 6 (1999) 285-323
14. N. Golb, "Khirbet Qumran and the Manuscripts of the Judaean Wilderness: Observations on the Logic of their Investigation," JNES 49 (1990) 103-14
15. idem, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls? (New York: Scribner, 1995)
16. Schuller, "Women and the Dead Sea Scrolls," 253
17. While scholars continue to debate the exact geographical location of the Essene settlement, which Pliny described as lying west of the Dead Sea between Jericho and Ein Gedi, there is probably more of a consensus of opinion that the resolution to much of this celibacy/gender debate lies within the cemetery at Qumran. Unfortunately, for our research purposes, the material excavated by de Vaux in the 1950s was divided and sent to four different institutions, two of which are in Europe. To further complicate matters, as field records show, retrieval was very selective and, aside from the material in the extensions, nowhere near complete, thus placing enormous demands today on physical anthropologists trying to reconstruct the demographic features from what little information is extant. Part of the difficulty lies with the physical nature of the material itself, which was in a very fragile condition, particularly the crania from the main cemetery, which were for the most part incomplete and fragmented due to the ravages of time. Shipping this material to Europe via Lebanon further exacerbated the problem
18. Along with these burials was T37, which was orientated along a north-south axis and conforms archaeologically to those burials from the main cemetery. The skeleton interred there was originally regarded as "uncertain (later male?)" in Elder's table ("The Woman Question," 227) and "indeterminate" in Pfann's notes of de Vaux. In both Taylor and Rohrer-Ertl, however, this skeleton is suddenly sexed as female, which is difficult to understand, as it was not even present in the sample in Munich. Moreover, Rohrer-Ertl lists its height as 159 cm, which makes it highly doubtful that this skeleton was female
19. Tomb 4 was oriented east-west, with the head in the east. It was very similar in style to the tombs of the main cemetery, and as the head was in the east, it could be neither Christian nor Islamic. According to Émile Puech (personal communication) this could have been from the earlier period of the Essene settlement when the north-south burial axis had not been formalized or it may have been from a later phase as it was on the margin of the main cemetery. Elder ("The Woman Question," 226) has it north-south while it appears on de Vaux' s map as east-west, and therefore it seems that there is some confusion here among scholars. As the tomb contained the remains of an adult male it may be of little concern to our argument, other than it may serve as the basis for the intrusive Bedouin cemetery. The Bedouin perceiving a east-west burial easily could have mistakenly regarded this interment as an Islamic burial. The fact that the Bedouin burials are spatially adjacent to T4 lends a certain amount of credence to this argument
20. R. de Vaux, Archaeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls (London: Published for the British Academy by the Oxford University Press, 1973) 47
21. Puech, "The Necropolises of Khirbet Qumran," 25
22. G. Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (New York: Allen Lane/Penguin Press, 1997) 45
23. M. Broshi, "The Archaeology of Qumran: A Reconsideration," The Dead Sea Scrolls: Forty Years of Research (eds D. Dimant and U. Rappaport; STDJ 10; Jerusalem: Magnes Press and Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi; Leiden: Brill, 1992) 112
24. As a result of extensive archaeological excavation this century, we have an ever-increasing body of knowledge concerning Jewish burial practices, particularly extended family burial in Jerusalem during the second temple period (see A. Kloner, The Necropolis of Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period [Jerusalem: Hebrew University Ph.D. Dissertation, 1980]
25. L.Y. Rahmani, "Ancient Jerusalem's Funerary Customs and Tombs," BA 44 [1981] 171-77, 229-35
26. BA 45 [1982] 43-53, 109-19
27. B. Zissu, The Necropolis of Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period: New Discoveries, 1980-1995 [Jerusalem: Hebrew University M.A. Thesis, 1995])
28. There is also a vast amount of material found in the Mishnah and other Jewish sources upon which scholars can draw that, although written later, reflect normative burial traditions during the late second temple period (cf. D. Zlotnick, The Tractate Mourning [Yale Judaica Series 17; New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966])
29. Elder, "The Woman Question," 229
30. Archaeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 58
31. In family tombs, particularly in the Jerusalem area and Jericho (R. Hachlili and A. Killebrew, "Jewish Funerary Customs During the Second Temple Period in the Light of the Excavations at Jericho Necropolis" PEQ 115 [1983] 115-25), grave goods will be found. These grave goods, however, usually fall into the category of items of daily life, which after use in the burial would either be broken (e.g., cooking pots) to prevent their reuse or oil lamps left in the tombs for halakhic reasons. Ceramic spindle bottles and glass perfume bottles will also be found in tombs from this period. However, if one takes into account the number of items and types found in tombs, divided by the number of individuals interred there, one can see that the ratio is very low. Furthermore, rings, beads, and earrings are items of a highly personal nature as opposed to objects of daily life and are seldom if ever found in Jewish tombs. If and when they do occur, as in Jericho, they are found in wooden coffins of women and children. According to Ann Killibrew (personal communication), one of the archaeologists involved in the Jericho excavations, no bead necklaces were found, and the number of beads that appeared in the wooden coffins totaled less that five. While beads were found in an Essene-type tomb at Hiam el-Sagha, the lack of information from the site and the fact that the beads have been lost makes assigning any ethnic affiliation on the basis of this one tomb a complicated prospect (Puech, "The Necropolises of Khirbet Qumran," 33 n. 28)
32. The amber beads that are commonly used in Bedouin folk medicine are in such near perfect condition that one cannot escape the impression that they have not been in the ground for any length of time. Due to their softness, they usually become fragile, dull in texture and pitted whereas these beads still retain their luster
33. V. Sussman, "A Burial Cave on Mount Scopus," 'Atiqot 21 (1992) 89-97
34. Evel Rabbati 9:23
35. Cf. Zlotnick, The Tractate "Mourning," 72
36. P. Bar-Adon, "Another Settlement of the Judean Desert Sect at 'En el-Ghuweir on the Shores of the Dead Sea," BASOR 227 (1977) 1-25 (originally appeared in Hebrew in ErIsr 10 [1971] 72-89)
37. A survey of the literature of known Jewish tomb sites, such as Meiron with 197 individuals from the first century to the fourth century CE, produced no beads (E. Meyers et al., Excavations at Ancient Meiron, Upper Galilee, Israel, 1971-72, 1974-75, 1977 [Cambridge, MA: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1981]) nor the tomb atop Mt Scopus (Sussman, "A Burial Cave on Mount Scopus"), with an additional eighty-eight individuals
38. Zissu, The Necropolis of Jerusalem
39. As many of the more than 900 second temple tombs discovered this century in Jerusalem have not been adequately published (Amos Kloner, personal communication), we asked the last four district archaeologists for Jerusalem (L.Y. Rahmani, A. Kloner, D. Bahat, G. Avni) if they had ever come across such a find, and their answers were in the negative. See Kloner, The Necropolis of Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period, in which he reported 650 burial tombs, all of which failed to show any evidence of bead necklaces among the burials
40. Frank Cross, one of the original scholars involved in Qumran research acknowledged at the Society of Biblical Literature meetings in Boston 1999 that the skeletal material "emerging from the cemeteries in 1956 appeared to be unusually fresh to the excavators." As these graves were exclusively from the eastern extensions and the southern cemetery, it is precisely this material which is problematical and has the highest concentration of women and children in relation to the cemetery as a whole. This may in fact be one of the reasons why de Vaux and others over the years paid scant attention to the material from the extensions, whereas others have believed and argued that it was an attempt at marginalizing the role of women at the site (Panel Discussion on the Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 21 November 1999, Hynes Center Ballroom B, 7-8:30 pm)
41. J.K. Eakins, Tell El-Hesi: The Muslim Cemetery in Fields V and VI/IX (Stratum II) (eds J.R. Spencer with K.G. O'Connell; The Joint Archaeological Expedition to Tell el-Hesi 5; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1993)
42. N. Brosh (ed.), Jewelry and Goldsmithing in the Islamic World: International Symposium, the Israel Museum, Jerusalem 1987 (Catalogue - The Israel Museum 320; Jerusalem: The Israel Museum, 1991) 3
43. idem, Islamic Jewelry (Catalogue - The Israel Museum 281; Jerusalem: The Israel Museum, 1987)
44. Human skeletal remains are often found in zoological surveys of hyena dens in the Judean Desert, apparently coming from these shallow Bedouin tombs which have been violated by predators (L. Horowitz and J. Kerbis, "Hyenas at Home," Land and Nature 16 [1991] 162-65)
45. While these five criteria are well known to the experienced field archaeologist and within the Islamic community, they apparently are lesser known to the community of scholars working within Qumran studies. It is perhaps ironic to note here that the French archaeologist/diplomat C. Clermont-Ganneau opened one tomb on 29 November 1873 in which he noted the tomb could not be Moslem, due to its north-south orientation (Archaeological Researches in Palestine During the Years 1873-1874 [London: Palestine Exploration Fund, 1896] 2.15-16). Nearly 125 years later, Qumran scholars attempting to interpret the field excavations of de Vaux have overlooked this fundamental rule of burial archaeology
46. Similar beads can be found in the collections of the Israel Museum, according to N. Brosh, the curator in charge of Islamic Art, as well as in the Museum of the Bedouin in Kibbutz Lahav (special thanks to Orna Cohen, curator in charge of the Museum of the Bedouin). According to Palestinian collectors of ethnic jewelry, the beads are commonly referred to as "halabat" beads on the belief that the beads have curative powers for a wide variety of diseases. One of the Qumran beads is similar to a bead exhibited in the Museum of the Bedouin and is catalogued as having curative powers for one suffering from dental pain. As one of the women in the cemetery was suffering from severe dental abscesses in the upper maxilla that had eroded away much of the alveolar bone, it is not surprising that this bead was found in the burial. Elderly women from the Palestinian town of Yatta when shown the beads immediately recognized them as early twentieth-century trade items, traded by nomadic Gypsies during the harvest season for agricultural produce. The fact that the beads were worn around the ankles immediately suggested to them that these women were Bedouin in origin. Special thanks to Palestinian anthropologist Essa Sari for this assistance
47. Rohrer-Ertl et al., "Über die Grabenfelder von Khirbet Qumran."
48. Puech, "The Necropolises of Khirbet Qumran," 26
49. B. Arensburg, The People in the Land of Israel from Epipaleolithic Times to Present Times (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Ph.D. Thesis, 1973) 22
50. P. Smith, E. Bornemann, and J. Zias, "Chapter 7: The Excavated Tomb," in Meyers et al., Excavations at Ancient Meiron, 110-18
51. J. Zias, "Human Skeletal Remains from the Mount Scopus Tomb," 'Atiqot 21 (1992) 97-103
52. Y. Nagar, Gush Halav Anthropological Report (unpublished; Israel Antiquities Authority, 1998)
53. Morphological features that would be characteristic of male crania include large supraorbital ridges and a low, sloping forehead (W.M. Bass, Human Osteology: A Laboratory and Field Manual [Columbia, MO: Missouri Archaeological Society, 1985] 81). One diagnostic example would be Abb. 9 of Rohrer-Ertl's recent article, which is labeled "Cranialansichten, Frauen," and contains two photos depicting the skulls recovered from T22 and T32. Contrary to the label, one can clearly see that T22, which was originally regarded as male by Kurth, possesses the above-mentioned masculine morphological features, especially when juxtaposed with T32, which is clearly female by all anthropological standards. Furthermore, the fact that the stature of T22 is 163 cm makes it highly improbable that T22 can be regarded as female
54. D. Ortner and W. Putschar, Identification of Pathological Conditions in Human Skeletal Remains (Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology 28; Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985) 33
55. Elder, "The Woman Question"
56. Schuller, "Women and the Dead Sea Scrolls"
57. Taylor, "The Cemeteries of Khirbet Qumran."
58. De Vaux, Archaeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 128-29
59. Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 14
60. R.M. Weiss, "On the Systematic Bias in Skeletal Sexing," American Journal of Physical Anthropology 37 (1972) 239 (italics mine - J.Z.)
61. Ortner and Putschar, Identification of Pathological Conditions, 32 (italics mine - J.Z.)
62. After studying the material under the curation of Rohrer-Ertl, I would reassign the very incomplete skeleton from T34 that was assigned as "female?" as male. The femur has many of the physical characteristics that one would assign as male, in particular its length which indicates that this individual had been 162 cm in height - highly unlikely for a woman of any age in antiquity. The width of the head of the femur is 43.5 cm, which is in the "gray area," the problematic range in which it is difficult to say whether this skeleton is definitely male or female. Had the dimensions of the femur been more gracile, I would have assigned it as indeterminate. As the estimated height of the individual is 162 cm, however, I would have to assign this as male
63. One need not see the material physically to come to this conclusion as the photographs published by Rohrer-Ertl et al. ("Über die Grabenfelder von Khirbet Qumran," 37-45 Abb. 3-11) clearly show the tremendous differences in preservation between the crania of the women and children and the males, the latter all of whom have required extensive cranial reconstruction
64. G.H. Sperber, "Paleodontopathology and Paleodontotherapy," Journal of the Canadaian Dental Association 52 (1986) 835-38
65. P. Smith, "Diet and Nutrition in the Natufians," American Journal of Physical Anthropology 37 (1972) 233-38
66. Stegemann (The Library of Qumran, 47) estimates thirty years as the average age of death, whereas I would estimate thirty-four years on the basis of the material that I viewed in Munich. The difference between his estimate and mine is probably due to his factoring in the females as the mortality data for females in antiquity shows that their longevity was shorter than that of males. Josephus writes that the Essenes are long lived, as most of them remain alive over a hundred years on account of their life style (War 2:151). This he attributes to their simplicity and the disciplined lives they lead. As few lived past forty, many dying in their twenties, this is a gross exaggeration and raises the question of the truthfulness of Josephus' account of the Essenes. In fact, if longevity is a measure of the quality of life, then the mortality rate expressed by the cemetery data suggests that their health status was seriously compromised. One of the cardinal principles of paleopathology, the Paradox of Pathology, is that the lack of observed skeletal pathology may indicate an unhealthy population. If one enjoys good health and one's immuniological system is not compromised then one survives those inevitable illnesses to which all populations are subject. These chronic illnesses which leave their mark on the skeletal system in fact show that if the individual or the population survived these insults then their immuniological system was robust and healthy enough to withstand these pressures. Thus, what was once believed to be a very unhealthy population in terms of observed pathology is today regarded as relatively healthier than that in which the population evidences no gross pathology. In other words, they simply came down with an acute illness and were so immuniologically compromised that they died immediately leaving no skeletal signs of the illness
67. Golb, "Khirbet Qumran"; idem, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?
68. N. Haas and H. Nathan, "Anthropological Survey of Human Skeletal Remains from Qumran," RevQ 6 (1968) 344-55. The ten graves excavated by Steckoll (T38-47) in my opinion are scientifically totally unreliable and thus omitted from the report. The same conclusions regarding Steckoll can be drawn from Puech's ("The Necropolises of Khirbet Qumran," 31) well thought-out analysis of the problems surrounding the cemetery and the role of Steckoll in the excavating process. The latter was eventually ordered by the Israel Department of Antiquities to cease and desist digging these tombs in 1967, though not before he removed some objects from the site itself which were later sold on the open antiquities market. Since he published some of his illegal excavations, many scholars not working in the field of archaeology/anthropology have uncritically assumed that he was a trained archaeologist. For example, Elder ("The Woman Question," 224) refers to Steckoll as an archaeologist, perpetuating the myth that his work is objective and scientific, whereas he was a journalist by profession and was more interested in the sensationalist side of the discipline than its historical and scientific aspects. Unfortunately, Taylor ("The Cemeteries of Khirbet Qumran") likewise relies heavily on the observations of Steckoll. While it may strengthen the position of those in favor of engendered archaeology, it will ultimately severely weaken their arguments, some of which are creditable
69. M. Broshi, "Was Qumran, Indeed, a Monastery?" Caves of Enlightenment: Proceedings of the American Schools of Oriental Research Dead Sea Scrolls Jubilee Symposium (1947-1997) (ed. J.H. Charlesworth; North Richmond Hills, TX: Bibal Press, 1998) 30
70. Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?, 34. Y. Yadin also believed that the cemetery was a military cemetery, being the central cemetery for the region's fortresses dating from the time of John Hyrcanus (The Temple Scroll [Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1983] 1.324)
71. J.-B. Humbert and A. Chambon, Fouilles de Khirbet Qumran et de Ain Feshkha I (NTOA Series Archaeologica 1; Fribourg: Editions Universitaires; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994) 213-28
72. While Kurth originally reported that T24 contained two males, Rohrer-Ertl has since reexamined the remains and reassigned them as one male and one female. Having personally examined the material in question, I disagree with this reassignment, which was based on very fragmentary material. In fact, while studying the material, there appeared to be evidence of a third individual in the sample, unrelated to the other two. Therefore, I strongly suspect that mixing of the material occurred sometime in the past after its transfer from Qumran to the laboratories, thus adding to the confusion. Taylor alludes to these problems of material being mixed that Kurth was having while he was in Jericho prior to their shipment to Europe ("The Cemeteries of Khirbet Qumran," 300 n. 52). Unfortunately, the material that was exceptionally well restored did not, with few exceptions, have any locus numbers or field numbers marked on the bones that could have prevented mixing. Working with human remains from an unfamiliar ethnic group is always problematical and can pose problems even for the experienced physical anthropologist. Furthermore, when the investigators (Kurth and Vallois) carried out their research, they did not have access either to the comparative material or to the database, both of which are extremely important, available today. With these analytical constraints, it is not inconceivable that some diagnostic errors were made in the past and the present
73. I disagree with Hachlili's assertion that burying the dead with their ancestors did not occur at Qumran ("Burial Practices at Qumran," 263). In two tombs we find two males, and in one of them the tomb appears to have be reopened for a subsequent burial at a lesser level, implying burying with one's family/relatives at a later date
74. Puech, "The Necropolises of Khirbet Qumran," 29 (quoting Milik)
75. B. Zissu, "'Qumran Type' Graves in Jerusalem: Archaeological Evidence of an Essene Community?" DSD 5 (1998) 158-71
76. A total of forty-seven individuals were found (personal communication Y. Nagar)
77. Hirschfeld's belief (Zissu, "'Qumran Type' Graves," 167 n. 21) that the Qumran cemetery actually belongs to the lower classes of the Jewish population of the second temple period, and that there is no reason to relate the cemetery to Qumran is, in my opinion, unsustainable, as it would require males, females, and children to be represented, a datum totally different from what one observes at the Qumran cemetery. Furthermore, an all-male Jewish cemetery, in which women and children would be separated, is totally at variance with Jewish burial customs for the period
78. K.D. Politis, "Rescue Excavations in the Nabatean Cemetery at Khirbet Qazone 1996-1997," Annual of the Department of Antiquities, Jordan 42 (1998) 614-16
79. H. Shanks, "Who Lies Here?" BARev 25/5 (September/October 1999) 49-53
80. Experience has shown that much of the destruction to the region's archaeological heritage comes from workers who have excavated the sites under the direction of foreign archaeological expeditions. Unfortunately, when the expeditions return home, the workers at times continue digging and looting the site for financial gain
81. C.M. Bennett, "Tombs of the Roman Period," Excavations in Jericho, Vol. 2: The Tombs Excavated in 1955-58 by K.M. Kenyon (London: British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, 1965) 516-45. Puech has recently pointed out ("The Necropolises of Khirbet Qumran," 33) that a proposed Essene occupation at Murabba'at, solely on the basis of a body buried in a shallow shaft is not enough for a Jewish identification. It could be, he argues, a cemetery of some pre-Islamic nomadic people
82. L.H. Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls (Philadelphia and Jerusalem: The Jewish Publication Society, 1994) 129
83. L.H. Schiffman, Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Courts, Testimony and the Penal Code (BJS 33; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983) 12-13, 214
84. H. Stegemann, "Some Aspects of Eschatology in Texts from the Qumran Community and in the Teachings of Jesus," Biblical Archaeology Today: Proceedings of the International Congress on Biblical Archaeology, Jerusalem, April 1984 (ed. J. Amitai; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1985) 410
85. "The Woman Question."
86. "Khirbet Qumran"; idem, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?
87. Puech critiques her article by pointing out that her hypothesis cannot be proven either on the basis of archaeology or the textual evidence ("The Necropolises of Khirbet Qumran," 33 nn. 14, 17). Aside from de Vaux, Broshi and Puech, few if any recognized Qumran scholars have come from the world of archaeology which unfortunately has resulted in numerous errors and misunderstandings in attempting to interpret the site. In my opinion, it is precisely these three scholars who have come the closest to correctly interpreting the site and the cemetery, whereas textual scholars and others understandably have not been able to critically understand and evaluate the somewhat complicated archaeological and anthropological data at hand
88. Bar-Adon, "Another Settlement of the Judean Desert Sect," 12
89. The anthropological report was never published which is unfortunate as twenty individuals were noted among the nineteen tombs excavated, again suggesting multiple burials as in Qumran, though they are not mentioned specifically in the publication. Elder ("The Woman Question," 225) misstates the gender ratio here as being eight women and children and twelve males, whereas Bar-Adon clearly states that the correct figure is six women, one child and thirteen males. Almost everyone misstates the number of tombs excavated. Instead of citing the correct figure of nineteen, Zissu ("'Qumran Type' Graves," 169) and Hachlili ("Burial Practices at Qumran," 253) both quote seventeen while Puech ("The Necropolises of Khirbet Qumran," 27), Taylor ("The Cemeteries of Khirbet Qumran," 310) and Elder ("The Woman Question," 225) all quote twenty
90. Clermont-Ganneau, Archaeological Researches in Palestine, 2.15-16. In 1873, Clermont-Ganneau opened one grave and remarked that these north-south graves "are clearly distinguished ... from the modern Mussulman graves by their orientation, the longer axis in every case pointing north and south, and not east and west." These remarks suggest that the Bedouin cemetery probably was in existence and he like many other scholars of the nineteenth century knew from their orientation that these burials were chronologically and culturally intrusive as they do not appear on his map of the site which includes the extensions to the east of the main cemetery (ibid., 15, Cemetery of Kumrân, illustration A, "General plan of the burying-ground")
91. The majority of Bedouin graves in Tell el-Hesi average 30-140 cm in depth (Eakins, Tell El-Hesi: The Muslim Cemetery, 8)
92. Elder, "The Woman Question," 225
93. It is not without a note of irony that de Vaux's helper E.M. Laperrousaz always spoke of cemeteries in the plural (E.M. Laperrousaz, Qoumran, l'établissement essénien des bords de la mer Morte: histoire et archeologie du site [Paris: A. & J. Picard, 1976] 19-25). Unfortunately, this important grammatical fact seems to have been ignored by the scholarly community aside from a brief footnote here and there
94. Totally celibate communities can survive quite well and increase their numbers at a rate greater than natural biological conditions could produce. A case in point is the Shaker community in the United States, which began in 1774 with nine members coming from England. Celibacy for men and women was strictly enforced and by proselytizing and conversion, they totaled 6,000 in nineteen communities by 1840. Cf. L. Foster, "Shakers," The Encyclopedia of Religion (ed. M. Eliade; New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1987) 13.200-1
95. DJD 36 (forthcoming)
96. In Vermes's work on the history of the community, he clearly echoes this belief stating, "It goes without saying, however, that the initial phases of the community's existence must have preceded by some years or decades the actual establishment of the sect at Qumran" (The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 58)
97. Cf. Y. Yadin, The Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962) 71-72
98. Puech, "The Necropolises of Khirbet Qumran," 29
99. Elder, "The Woman Question," 224
100. I arrive at this figure by excluding the Bedouin tombs in the eastern and southern extensions as well as the material excavated by Steckoll in the 1960s for reasons stated above in n. 56
101. A thorough search of the archival material in the Israel Antiquities Authority failed to reveal the anthropological report upon which Bar-Adon's article was based. As one tomb was oriented east-west, however, my feeling is that this could very well have been the tomb of the child or from the Islamic period
102. Stegemann, attempting to show that the celibacy issue was illusory, calculated the number of times that an Essene could have sexual relations, according to halakhah, and arrived at the figure of but twenty times over a ten-year period (The Library of Qumran, 197)
103. S.J.D. Cohen, Josephus in Galilee and Rome: His Vita and Development as a Historian (Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 8; Leiden: Brill, 1979) 181
104. S.J.D. Cohen, "Masada: Literary Traditions, Archaeological Remains and the Credentials of Josephus," JJS 33 (1982) 385-405
105. J. Magness, "Masada: Arms and the Man," BARev 18/4 (July/August 1992) 58-67
106. N. Ben-Yehuda, The Masada Myth (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995)
107. J. Zias, "Human Skeletal Remains from the Southern Cave (2001) at Masada and the Question of Ethnicity," Proceedings of the 50th Anniversary of the Dead Sea Scrolls (eds. L.H. Schiffman, E. Tov and J. VanderKam; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, in press)
108. idem, "Whose Bones?" BARev 24/6 (November/December 1998) 40-45, 64-66
109. see also the replies to critics of Zias, "Whose Bones?" in BARev 25/2 (March/April 1999) 101-6
110. Broshi ("The Credability of Josephus," JJS 33 [1982] 379-84) is somewhat less critical of the historical value of using Josephus in attempting to understand the period in which Josephus lived and wrote. Others, however, have pointed out that his claim to having spent three years with the Essenes as part of his early education is clearly a fabrication, and if he was indeed with them, at best the time was but six months (M. Black, The Essene Problem [London: Heffer and Sons, 1961] 34). Furthermore, Josephus' assertion that the initiation period to the community was three years is at variance with 1QS 6:21, which clearly states that the period was only two years. Broshi attempts to explain this contradiction by claiming that this extra year was an additional year of study prior to the probationary period (M. Broshi, "A Day in the Life of Hananiah Nothos: A Story," A Day at Qumran: The Dead Sea Sect and Its Scrolls (ed. A. Roitman; Jerusalem: The Israel Museum, 1997) 68
111. Cohen, Josephus in Galilee and Rome, 233
112. Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls, 129
113. Stegemann, The Library of Qumran, 193-98
114. Despite allegations that de Vaux and the Dominicans of the École Biblique were interpreting the Essene community in light of Christian models of monasticism, it was actually the Americans who first associated the community at Qumran with monasticism. Recently, Broshi addressed this issue of monasticism in which he ended his article, independently and prior to my study, with the following sentence, which in my opinion sums up the issue, "If they were Essenes, then something seems to be quite clear: Qumran was a monastery" ("Was Qumran, Indeed, a Monastery?" 19-37)