Were Temple Offerings Buried at Qumran?

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We typically think of cemeteries as places where people bury deceased family members and loved ones. But in the first century BCE, the inhabitants of Qumran, the famous site associated with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, also buried something else in their cemetery: sealed pottery jars. At least two graves at Qumran contained storage jars once filled with date honey but no human remains! What is behind this strange custom, which is unique to Qumran?1 The Qumran cemetery is located about 150 feet to the east of the main settlement […]

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Endnotes

1. For more detailed discussion, see Dennis Mizzi, “The Burial of Sealed Jars in the Qumran Cemetery: Disposal of Consecrated Property?” in Dennis Mizzi, Tine Rassalle, and Matthew J. Grey, eds., Pushing Sacred Boundaries in Early Judaism and the Ancient Mediterranean: Essays in Honor of Jodi Magness (Leiden: Brill, 2023), pp. 349–373.

2. Yitzhak Magen et al., Back to Qumran: Final Report (1993–2004), JSP 18 (Jerusalem: IAA & Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria, 2018), pp. 59, 100, 123.

3. Jodi Magness, “Qumran, the Site of the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Review Article,” Revue de Qumran 22 (2006), pp. 641–664.