----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <g-megillot@McMaster.ca>
Sent: Friday, July 21, 2006 11:12 AM
Subject: Re: [Megillot] Qumran cemetery-the skeletons
1. Several papers read at the Brown conference, which I attended, made
unreliable assertions. Several papers in the Brown volume make uneliable
assertions. Some of the papers contradict one another. Nothing from the
Brown
conference and volume seriously refuted Essene presence at Qumran.
2. There is no evidence of balsam production at Qumran.
As I said in our discussion back in 1998:
"IF the En-Gedi sites are related to Qumran and these bottles were found at
both sites...we do know that this was the area for the cultivation of
Balsam.(Josephus Ant.xiv.iv; x.iv). Balsam was a medicinal herb as well as
used for incense and perfume. The Essenes were known as herbalists..they
are located smack-dab in the middle of "Balsam country." These people had
to support themselves and I would vote that they were cultivators and
processors of Balsam. If this is the case, and the ostracon is a deed of
conveyance of cultivation land (either to Honi or to Eleazar) that will be
transacted on the completion of the bottling...of the balsam"
Pauline Donceel-Voute, reviewing Father Roland de Vaux's inventory for the
Ecole Biblique, found De Vaux had found many 'perfume bottles' at Qumran,
but failed to declare them in his inventory. De Vaux also found many bottle
stoppers, also omitted from his inventory.
Brahm Rosenweig for the Discovery Channel on Hirschfeld's excavation (Feb,
1998):
"Pottery found at the site dates it to around the time the Essenes
flourished in the region, just prior to 100 A.D. A small glass perfume
bottle found in one of the cells, as well as evidence of a perfume factory
in the valley below, suggests that the residents manufactured perfume.
Hirschfeld said that the Essenes grew a type of Balsam tree which is now
extinct but the fragrant sap of which once was used to make perfume popular
in Egypt and Rome. "
Balsam was also important for use at the temple.
I don't know what evidence would be left behind if the K. Qumran site was a
processing plant for balsam but I would also pose that evidence for same has
not been explored. What about those odd "scriptorium tables" that are
clearly too cumbersome for scriptorial work. They have plastered tops and
the plaster is still intact. Have these tops ever been examined either
microscopically or spectrophotometrically to look for clues (ink, plant
fibers) for their use? If not, why not?
Jack Kilmon
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