Textiles found at Qumran Caves linked to Essenes?

[ignorantianescia]

The Dead Sea Scrolls may have been written, at least in part, by a sectarian group called the Essenes, according to nearly 200 textiles discovered in caves at Qumran, in the West Bank, where the religious texts had been stored.

Scholars are divided about who authored the Dead Sea Scrolls and how the texts got to Qumran, and so the new finding could help clear up this long-standing mystery.

www.livescience.com/17123-dead-sea-scrolls-writers-textiles.html

[jamierobertson]

I was under the impression that the idea of Essenes writing DSS was well established, if not the scholarly consensus... is this anything new?

[ignorantianescia]

From my understanding, that was the original interpretation and it is also the one taught in most introductory classes (so it is probably closest to a consensus), but it has been contested more often in recent years. This find looks like some more evidence for the Essene hypothesis to me, though it won't convince the die-hard opponents.

[timoneill]

Dec 1, 2011 16:29:54 GMT ignorantianescia said:

This find looks like some more evidence for the Essene hypothesis to me, though it won't convince the die-hard opponents.

Well, I'm not a "die-hard opponent" but I generally find the Essene hypothesis unconvincing and can't see this as very convincing evidence for it. The textiles are linen so they are Essene? Only Essenes ever used plain linen? Pardon? This is pretty pathetic stuff and hardly worth a news story. But have been a slow day ...

[fortigurn]

Dec 1, 2011 19:47:45 GMT timoneill said:

The textiles are linen so they are Essene? Only Essenes ever used plain linen? Pardon?

No that isn't the argument being made. The scholarly commentary on this discovery is more useful for understanding why this finding is being treated with interest in the academic community.

Among the Qumran textiles that were kept at the Rockefeller Museum was a group of textiles that were unusual for Qumran. Most of them were made of wool, and some were dyed or decorated. Their marking QCC—Qumran Christmas Cave indicates their origin.

In 2007 the cave was investigated by Porat, Eshel, and Frumkin. The cave is located in the bottom section of Kidron valley and doesn't belong to Qumran caves. It can now be determined that all of the textiles from Qumran are made solely of linen. They were free of any colored decoration, except for scroll wrappers that decorated in blue.

This, and the simplicity and whiteness of the textiles from Qumran, is compatible with the literary sources. It appears that the people of Qumran wished to differentiate themselves from the rest of the population also on the basis of their style of garments.

In addition to the literary evidence of Josephus (Wars, 2.131-2, 138, there's also the 'War Scroll' (1QM, column 7, sections 9-10).

(9) When the battle lines are arrayed against the enemy, battle line against battle line, there shall go forth from the middle opening into the gap between the battle lines seven
(10) priests of the sons of Aaron, dressed in fine white linen garments: a linen tunic and linen breeches, and girded with a linen sash of twined fine linen, violet,
(11) purple, and crimson, and a varicolored design, the work of a skillful workman, and decorated caps on their heads; the garments for battle, and they shall not take them into the sanctuary.

[timoneill]

Dec 2, 2011 4:21:19 GMT fortigurn said:

"It can now be determined that all of the textiles from Qumran are made solely of linen. They were free of any colored decoration, except for scroll wrappers that decorated in blue. "

Really? Because this study talks in some detail about cotton and "bast fibre" (probably hemp) fabrics being found there as well. And not in the Christmas cave, but at Qirbet Qumran proper. Excuse the pun, but this still seems like people dangling a lot of conclusion from a slender thread of evidence.

[ignorantianescia]

Dec 1, 2011 19:47:45 GMT timoneill said:

Well, I'm not a "die-hard opponent"

Well, feel free to choose another word for "thorough in holding an opinion" or "not changing one's opinion quickly/lightly".

Dec 2, 2011 10:56:09 GMT timoneill said:

Dec 2, 2011 4:21:19 GMT fortigurn said:

"It can now be determined that all of the textiles from Qumran are made solely of linen. They were free of any colored decoration, except for scroll wrappers that decorated in blue. "

Really? Because this study talks in some detail about cotton and "bast fibre" (probably hemp) fabrics being found there as well. And not in the Christmas cave, but at Qirbet Qumran proper. Excuse the pun, but this still seems like people dangling a lot of conclusion from a slender thread of evidence.

Nice find. I obviously can't say whether the people who did the survey mentioned in the other article took notice of that research. According to the site of one of the co-authors of the SEM study, some of the samples they used had been preserved with bee or paraffin wax so there were some issues with dating but it doesn't mention whether those have been resolved.

The table in the LiveScience article doesn't show other categories than linen, wool, goat hair, camel hair and mixed clothing, so maybe they haven't been mentioned at all. Still, it's a high proportion of linen.

[fortigurn]

Dec 2, 2011 16:39:09 GMT ignorantianescia said:

Dec 1, 2011 19:47:45 GMT timoneill said:

Nice find. I obviously can't say whether the people who did the survey mentioned in the other article took notice of that research. According to the site of one of the co-authors of the SEM study, some of the samples they used had been preserved with bee or paraffin wax so there were some issues with dating but it doesn't mention whether those have been resolved.

I'm still reading through the article Tim posted, but thus far I can see none of the fibers examined were identified as having come from textiles used for clothing, and none of the had been deliberately dyed; pigmentation was the result of environmental agents and time.