To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, December 26, 2004 6:33 PM
Subject: Re: [Megillot] L30 Tables
----- Original Message ----- From: "Jack Kilmon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Dierk van den Berg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 12:21 AM
Subject: Re: [Megillot] L30 Tables
[...]> Assumedly for writing and/or calculation, but assumedly it was no > Triclinium > (an anachronistic term with Catholic connotation)
I would argue this but it is not the point of the discussion.
Argue what? the 'triclinium' in parentheses (checked) or 'writing and/or calculation' ?
That the triclinium is anachronistic to the time or culture. Since the bench is not a triclinium, it is moot.
> No Scriptorium (again an anachronistic term), but perhaps a branchoffice.place
Scriptorium need not be a "monastic" term but a word that represents awhere scribal activity took place. They may have called it maqom ha sefer
but it is still irrelevent to my point. Were those cotton pickin tables
used for writing?
If calculation is a scribal activity then I'd suppose that two of the three
tables (# 967, # 969) were used for writing.
Taking reed to parchment or papyrus is a scribal activity. What calculation? Why # 967 and 969?
time,> Traces of ink - perhaps, perhaps not.
Again, if those tables were used for writing texts over any period ofthere will indeed be evidence of it. Microscopic particles of ink from tapping reed pens. Blots, accidental spills, bleed through, even smears from ink on thumbs. Traces of ink carbon, gallic acid, etc.
Yes, but what if the articles in question are still archived in plastic bags
and cartons as it was the case with the Collectio Kurth - skeletons from 23
graves of the main cemetery, objects of de Vaux's 1st campaign 1958, edited
by O. Roehrer-Ertl and F. Rohrhirsch not until 2001?
The benches and tables are reconstructed and on display.
just> For sure one would find the genetic fingerprint of P�re Roland de Vaux.
I am not all that concerned with Fr. de Vaux's "monastery imagery" butwant to know if these tests on those surfaces have been done and, if not,itis not serious science being done over there.
I don't think that any modern tests were made up to now.
Then it is time this work gets done, particularly since the results are critical to the issue on whether scribal activity took place on these tables.
> The word ("scriptorium") remains in quotation marks due to itsanachronisticconnotation.
Well, there were scribal school traditions throughout ancient PalestineandI do not believe that the DSS and Torahs were written "lap style." A scriptorium means "place for scribing" and would be the same as a maqom haSefer.
The difference is that "scriptorium" was never ever the name of this
"room" - and those who wrote were neither "fundamentalists" nor archetypical
"monks" - the matrix of technical terms simply doesn't meet the criteria
here.
inThe question remains open whether those tables from L30 were used for writing and proper forensic examination would settle the issue. Whythe pluperfect holy smoke has it not been done?
Agreed. But I do not know what has caused the Rip van Winkle sleep in the DSS research. A shame (see the Collectio Kurth) in any case.
BTW, I have been asking this question for many years. Here is an exchange with Dave Washburn on Orion 6 years ago:
Jack Kilmon wrote:
DW:
> For example, so he said Qumran had a "scriptorium." Surely,
> the tables can be discussed. But can we recall that, e.g., Sir A. > Gardiner,
> already before Qumran discoveries, used the term for more ancient > scribal
> houses? (Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 24, 1938, 157f.) As for a > "fiction
> of scholarship," please let us remind ourselves, for example, who was in > on
> the so-called "Essene hypothesis" conspiracy-- Sukenik and Trever, Yadin
> and Brownlee, de Vaux and Allegro, Strugnell, Vermes, Sowmy, Milik,
> Dupont-Sommer, Samuel, Wilson, Gaster, and Golb's teacher Albright. If > we
> could bring then in a room today, would they all even be civil to one
> another? Some conspiracy!
JK:
Bill Albright part of a conspiracy? I'd sooner believe the Pope was
theHillside Strangler (g).
The issue of the tables, however, is interesting since my understanding of their architecture does not conform to a "scriptorium" table. I have asked this question before with no responses and will ask again. If these tables were use over decades for the penning of texts, there would almost certainly be evidences of that through microscopic analysis of the table surfaces..minute ink spots, for example.
Has anyone on the archaeological team performed a microscopic examination of the table surfaces, and if not, why not?
DW:
I don't know the answer to that, but the first time I saw a photo of these
"tables" I could see, even in some very poor reproductions of the photos, what
certainly appear to be - forgive my crassness - butt-prints on them. There
appear to be distinctive patterns of discoloration and possibly wear that are
just the size and shape of a person's back end. How anyone could miss the
obvious conclusion that these were benches, not tables, is one of life's little
mysteries IMO.
******
I think Dave's observation is very interesting. The "long room" could have been the "meeting room."
OK..so who is in charge of the scientific team, what is his/her e-mail address? I guess its time to ask the responsible scientists to perform these tests.
Jack Kilmon
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