Qumran—the Evidence of the Inkwells

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The nature of the settlement at Qumran, adjacent to the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, continues to be a hotly debated topic among scholars and the educated public alike. The entrants in the debate are (1) a military fortress, a contention supported by Norman Golb of the University of Chicago; (2) a winter villa, a contention recently advanced by Robert Donceel and Pauline Donceel-Voûte, associated with the universities of Louvain and Fribourg in Belgium, who have been engaged to complete the final excavation report on the site by the École Biblique in Jerusalem; and (3) the traditional interpretation proposed by the excavator Roland de Vaux many years ago: an isolated religious community, which some have described as a kind of monastery.

The arguments for each of these contentions have recently been canvassed in the pages of this magazine. (See Hershel Shanks, “The Qumran Settlement—Monastery, Villa or Fortress?” BAR 19:03 Shanks opts for de Vaux’s original interpretation.

One of the bits of evidence in the debate concerns the ancient inkwells found at Qumran, suggesting that scribes engaged in extensive writing at the site. At a scholarly conference in New York in 1992, Pauline Donceel-Voûte contended that inkwells are commonly found at such sites and prove little.^a In fact, inkwells are relatively rare finds.

De Vaux excavated three inkwells at the site. Far from being common, this is quite remarkable. Indeed, this appears to be unparalleled at such a small site in ancient Palestine. Moreover, it is not usually noted that subsequently a fourth, and possibly a fifth, inkwell were recovered from Qumran.

One of the inkwells de Vaux found was made of bronze. The other two were ceramic. The bronze inkwell and one of the ceramic ones were found in the room de Vaux labeled the scriptorium (locus 30). The other ceramic inkwell came from an adjacent room (locus 31).

In 1966 and 1967, shortly before the Six Day War, another archaeologist, Solomon Steckoll, working under the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, conducted further excavations at Qumran and performed some restoration work. Because his work was heavily criticized by de Vaux and others, his finds are often ignored. But Steckoll also found an inkwell. He is now deceased, and it is impossible to tell from his published reports precisely where at Qumran the inkwell was found. It is now in the Hecht Museum at the University of Haifa. Dried ink from this inkwell has been collected and may eventually prove important for future research.

A fifth inkwell also very likely came from Qumran. It was purchased in 1967 from Kando (Khalil Eskander Shahin), the antiquities dealer who was the middleman for many of the Dead Sea Scrolls. According to Kando, this inkwell came from Qumran. It is now in the Archaeological Research Collection of the University of Southern California, a gift of Gerald LaRue.

Whether four or five, the number of inkwells from a site like this is extraordinary.^b None has been found, for example, at Sepphoris, a major Galilean site, extensively excavated, where the Mishnah^c was completed.

In short, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that considerable writing took place at Qumran. No comprehensive study of ancient inkwells has ever been undertaken. When that is done, scholars may well conclude that the inkwells at Qumran are even more unusual than appears from a less than complete survey.

(For further details, see Stephen Goranson, “An Inkwell From Qumran,” Michmanim 6 (1992), pp. 37–40, Hecht Museum, University of Haifa. See also Goranson, “Sectarianism, Geography, and the Copper Scroll,” Journal of Jewish Studies 43 (1992), pp 282–287.)

The nature of the settlement at Qumran, adjacent to the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, continues to be a hotly debated topic among scholars and the educated public alike. The entrants in the debate are (1) a military fortress, a contention supported by Norman Golb of the University of Chicago; (2) a winter villa, a contention recently advanced by Robert Donceel and Pauline Donceel-Voûte, associated with the universities of Louvain and Fribourg in Belgium, who have been engaged to complete the final excavation report on the site by the École Biblique in Jerusalem; and (3) the […]