Endnote 54 – Was It an Essene Settlement?
A parallel may be found at the Iron Age extramural quarter of Jerusalem where the excavators found a “tumble of pottery” in a cave. This pottery consisted of a great number of small bowls, “probably used for drinking wine … juglets, which could have been used for keeping oil, … [and] other pottery connected with cooking and serving food.” This Iron Age find was, according to the excavators, a “kitchen inventory of a restaurant or guest house.” H. J. Franken and M. L. Steiner, Excavation in Jerusalem 1961–1967: The Iron Age Extramural Quarter on the South East (Oxford: 1990), pp. 24–27, plate 6.