New Data on the Cemetery East of Khirbet Qumran*

NEW DATA ON THE CEMETERY EAST OF KHIRBET QUMRAN*

HANAN ESHEL Bar Ilan University MAGEN BROSHI The Israel Museum RICHARD FREUND The University of Hartford BRIAN SCHULTZ Bar Ilan University

I. Mapping of the Cemetery During the course of 2001, the cemetery east of Khirbet Qumran was mapped. 1 The goal was to provide the academic community with an exact number of tombs, their orientation, and to determine how

* The John and Carol Merrill Qumran Excavations Project was a joint effort between several organizations. The excavations were directed by Magen Broshi and Hanan Eshel on behalf of the Bar Ilan University and the Israel Exploration Society. Project director was Richard Freund, assisted by a number of co-directors who were respon- sible for various aspects of the project: Robert Eisenman (California State University), Harry Jol (University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire), Philip Reeder (University of Nebraska at Omaha), Paul Bauman (Komex International Inc.) and Carl Savage (Drew Uni- versity). We wish to thank the Frankel Foundation, Los Angeles, and Hershel Shanks and the Biblical Archaeological Society, Washington, DC, for their assistance. 1 The cemetery east of Khirbet Qumran is one single cemetery, situated on the same plateau as the ruins, although to the east it spreads out over four hills. See R. de Vaux, ÒFouilles au Khirbet Qumr‰n, rapport prliminaire,Ó RB 60 (1953) 95. For the sake of clarity, we will call the northernmost of these hills the ÒNorth Hill,Ó and the three hills south of it ÒFingersÓ (ÒNorth Finger,Ó ÒMiddle Finger,Ó and ÒSouth FingerÓ). Further north, de Vaux found another burial ground with over a dozen tombs, which he called the ÒNorthern Cemetery.Ó See R. de Vaux, ÒFouilles au Khirbet Qumr‰n, rapport prliminaire sur les 3e, 4e, et 5e campagnes,Ó RB 63 (1956) 569. S. Steckoll thought that this Northern Cemetery was the North Hill and emphasized that there was only one cemetery. See S.H. Steckoll, ÒMarginal Notes on the Qumran Excavations,Ó RevQ 7 (1969) 37 –38. This idea was accepted by J.B. Humbert who called our North Hill ÒLe Cimetire Nord.Ó See J.B. Humbert and A. Chambon, Fouilles de Khirbet Qumr‰n

©Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2002 Dead Sea Discoveries 9, 2 Also available online – www.brill.nl 136 HANAN ESHEL, MAGEN BROSHI, RICHARD FREUND, BRIAN SCHULTZ many have been dug up clandestinely. It is hoped that the publication of this map will help put a halt to these illegal excavations in the Qumran Cemetery. 2 Until now, no map indicating each and every burial in the Qumran Cemetery had been published, 3 and this contributed in part to the rise of the argument over the actual number of tombs in the cemetery. 4 Generally speaking, tombs excavated at Qumran were not subsequently lled in, making it possible to identify most of them. 5 On 29 November 1873, C. Clermont-Ganneau dug up a single grave, without giving any indication as to where it was located in the cemetery. 6 Conse- quently, it cannot be identi ed today. R. de Vaux noted that before he began his excavations in the cemetery, several tombs had already et de An Feshkha I (NTOA Series Archaeologica 1; Gšttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994) 214. One of the photographs published by Humbert and Chambon, however, proves that the ÒNorthern CemeteryÓ is not the ÒNorth Hill.Ó See Humbert and Chambon, Fouilles, 216 no. 448. For this reason, ƒ. Puech had already suggested that the ÒNorthern CemeteryÓ should not be equated with the ÒNorth HillÓ (see ƒ. Puech, ÒThe Necropolises of Khirbet Qumr‰n and ®Ain el-Ghuweir and the Essene Belief in Afterlife,Ó BASOR 312 [1998] 21 –25). As the result of military activity north of Khirbet Qumran, this cemetery was destroyed and is no longer identi able. The tombs in the small cemetery discovered south of Wadi Qumran, which de Vaux called the ÒSouthern Cemetery,Ó are all oriented east-west (see Humbert and Chambon, Fouilles, 214), and appear to be in all likelihood Bedouin burials. 2 Most of these illegal excavations take place at night, when the site is not guarded. Since it is clear, however, that there are few grave goods in these tombs, these excavations are relatively small in number. 3 The map published by Humbert and Chambon ( Fouilles, 214) marks only the loca- tion of the tombs excavated by R. de Vaux. 4 From the information we have been able to gather over the course of our excavations at Qumran, it is possible to see how those who have cast doubt on de VauxÕs claims, suggesting that he was not being precise, have almost all been mistaken. See n. 1 for one such example. Another is the article of Z. Kapera and J. Konik who claim that de Vaux never counted all the tombs and suggest that there are only 711 tombs. See Z.J. Kapera and J. Konik, ÒHow Many Tombs in Qumran?Ó QC 9 (2000) 35 –49. In it, Kapera and Konik published the scholarly opinions relating to the number of tombs in the Qumran cemetery. Our mapping of the cemetery, however, con rms de VauxÕs numbers. 5 Nonetheless, several of the tombs excavated by de Vaux have since been covered over: e.g., his numbers 7 and 8 which are located in the northwest part of the cemetery. His number 10 on the North Hill may also have been covered over, but see n. 20. If one supposes that there may be other tombs that have been lled in over the years and are consequently not identi able today, then it would stand to reason that even more tombs have been excavated clandestinely. But the fact that most of the tombs excavated by de Vaux can still be identi ed with relative ease strengthens the notion that excavated tombs were not subsequently lled in. For a comprehensive survey of the characteris- tics of the tombs dug during controlled excavations, see Appendix A. 6 C. Clermont-Ganneau, Archaeological Researches in Palestine during the Years 1873–1874 (London: Palestine Exploration Fund, 1896) 2.15 –16.