Aerial view of southern Qumran Plateau

(looking from west to east)

Qumran Plateau Excavation Team (Weeks 1-3)

Excavation

East Square

Cooking Pot

Pot With Bones

West Square Pit

Store Jar

Inside Store Jar

Scott Barnett with grinding stone

Store jars

The shade area (to right of where people are standing) is the location of our west square. The east square was above and to the right of the west square next to the east wall (the dark line running along the ridge of the plateau. Operation Scroll (1994) had revealed several stone-lined storage pits (probably for wine storage) near our sites on the southern plateau. Our excavation was the first to reveal evidence of habitation at the site through our discovery of a cooking installation.

Front row right to left: Charles Webber, Margaret Cotter, Randall Price, Jim Higgins, Tom Lee. Second row: Rick Schuler, Janelle Worthington, Lou Ann Messenger, Debra Collett and Cindy, Brian Bishop, Daniel Calvo, Eloise Rios, Aubrey Richardson, Dennis Worthington. Last row: Scott Barnett, Gary Collett, Gary Wayne Bransom. Not pictured: Jim Swann, Jonathan Price, Duane Pieper, Ann Clark, Dustin Moore.

Work on the extension of the south balk of the east square by members of the 2002 excavation team: left to right: Scott Barnett, Brian Bishop, Lou Ann Messenger, Duanne Peiper. Behind the diggers is a green tarp covering the recently discovered oven. Working in the sift pile in the background are left to right: Janelle Worthington and Dr. Dennis Worthington.

Dr. Randall Price with finds from the east square. Left to right: stone-lined oven (Arabic tabun) in which was discovered large amount of ash containing small bird bones, thin-walled store jar (in situ), Roman cooking pot (restored), store jar (partially restored).

Close-up view of one of four cooking pots discovered. This is a larger style cooking pot. The style according to Roland DeVaux's classification of pottery types at Qumran fits the Qumran II phase (31 BC-AD 68). This was the pot that contained the largest number of bones and ash (see next photo).

Bottom of a cooking pot in situ (in the place where it was discovered) containing sheep bones and ash remains. This is the bottom of the reconstructed pot in the previous photo. While this discovery was not unique, as numerous examples of such cooking pots with remains were found in earlier excavations, it is the first example found in the past few decades, and the first found on the southern end of the plateau. These have been identified by some with the "tithe vessels" mentioned in the Copper Scroll and have been associated with ritual vessels used in a sacred ceremony by the priestly community known as the Yachad. The reason these vessels were buried entact was not because a meal had gone bad, but because the contents were considered sacred and were set apart for the Lord. Therefore, the sect followed the regulations set forth in the Book of Leviticus to take the ashes of the sacrifice outside the camp and bury them.

West square pit at 40 foot level as crew continues to descend in search of a paleo-chamber thought to be the anomaly at at the 55 foot level. The pit was dug using two small jack hammers, hand picks, with dirt removed by hand via a bucket chain.

A store jar emerges from the soil. Although entact, the desicated condition (here evidenced by the handles as they break away from the body of the vessel) did not permit it to be removed. The next picture is a view inside this store jar.

A view inside the desicated store jar revealing the marks from the potter's wheel - still visible after 2,000 years!

Scott Barnett shows one of several grinding stones discovered near the oven in our cooking installation.

Two store jars in situ. The lighter colored jar contained a large quantity of river rocks and an anomalous rim. Its own rim and handles were not found. It appears that a flash flood swept through the cooking installation from the west burying the oven and pots. This may have caused the destruction of a portion of the east wall next to our square that had collapsed in antiquity. The red-colored jar is the desicated vessel previously described.