Dear list members, A documentary on the Qumran sect and the Dead Sea Scrolls recently aired on Discovery Channel briefly featured and discussed a shallow limestone bowl (14.5 cm in diameter) with a central hole (not pierced) and various raised circles, three of which show semi-regular graduation marks.
The object, found in 1954 by Roland de Vaux and now preserved in the Shrine of the Book in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, has been claimed a few years ago to be an azimuth sundial used by the Essene community at Qumran to regulate their daily duties. A brief description of the object was given in the Jerusalem Post of April 14, 1997, which can be viewed at: http://www.jpost.com/com/Archive/14.Apr.1997/News/Article-8.html A more detailed account (with an image of the object and a reconstruction of its purported function) can be viewed at: http://www.kalia.org.il/Qumran/History/time_concept.html A search on the web led to three articles discussing the object: M. Albani, U. Glessmer & G. Grasshoff, "An Instrument for Determining the Hours of the Day and the Seasons", in: A. Roitman (ed.), _A Day at Qumran: The Dead Sea Sect and Its Scrolls_ (The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 1997), pp. 20-22. A. Avitzour, "An Astronomical measuring instrument from Qumran (probably used as a sundial)", The Compendium, 4 (1997), nr. 4(?), ??-??. An article in the August 1998 issue of the Biblical Archaeology Review which dismisses the claim and suggests that it may be a simple board game. I have not seen any of these articles yet but I am puzzled by the claims made in de Discovery documentary and the above-mentioned web sites that it could accurately indicate the time (to a third part of a seasonal hour) and the season of the year. How this was achieved with such a simple device, featuring no obvious labels for identifying the hours or seasons indicated and lacking any provisions for setting it up correctly in the north-south direction is beyond me. I am fully aware that many Greek-Roman sundials don't feature these hour/season labels either but there the number of markings is much smaller making their identification more obvious. The reconstruction drawing offered in the second-mentioned web site also seems to have either north-south or winter-summer incorrectly labelled. Is anyone on the list familiar with a more detailed study of this object? ================================================================ * Robert H. van Gent * Tel/Fax: 00-31-30-2720269 * * Zaagmolenkade 50 * E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * * 3515 AE Utrecht * Home page (under construction): * * The Netherlands * http://www.fys.ruu.nl/~vgent/ * ================================================================
