SPATIAL APPROACH TO THE RUINS OF KHIRBET QUMRAN AT THE DEAD SEA
Kenneth Lónnqvist, PhilLic* Minna Lônnqvist, PhD",
With a contribution by Reino Anttila, Astronomer, Physicist, Mathematician
“Researcher, "Project Leader, Institute for Cultural Reasearch, Department of Archaeology,
POB 59, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland.
E-mail: minna.lonnqvist@helsinki.fi and kenneth.lonnqvist@helsinki.fi.
KEY WORDS: Archacology, Khirbet Qumran, Surveying, GIS, Spatial, Geomorphology, Landscapes, Paleofloods.
ABSTRACT:
The discovery of the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 at Khirbet Qumran generated excitement and
on the western shore of the Dead Sea. The excavations from the late 1940s until 1956 rev
common belief is that the Essenes who produced the manuscripts inh
archaeologists and a natural scientist was formed in 1994 to do a topographical and spatial study of Qumr
were to investigate the structural orientations of the settlement, which would indicate if
the field survey was to produce an initial reproduction of the tog
archaeological investigations
ealed a settlement and a large cemetery. A
abited the site. A team consisting of Finnish and British
an. The goals of the study
a central planning existed. The objective of
»ographic development of the site and its immediate surroundings. To
achieve this old maps and aerial images were used. A tacheometric total station (EDM) was used to record and collect a set of
coordinates from relevant surfaces and features in the
the topographic development and the planning h
arca on the ground. The surveying and documentation also used traditional
measurement techniques and photographic documentation. The use
and chronology of Qumran has not been fully understood because
ave remained unexplored. Our most important conclusion was that there was à
central planning where axial orientations and astronomy played a cent
ral role in the shaping of the settlement and cemetery. From the
new topographic and hydrological studies, we know that the site apparently was submerged under the Dead Sea in the 30s B.C,
which interrupted the habitation.
I. INTRODUCTION
In 1947 the first ancient manuscripts were found in a cave at the
shore of the Dead Sea by a young shepherd boy who was
looking after his sheep. The news of the find spread quickly
after the acquisition and purchase of the first manuscripts,
which sparkled a scientific expedition to the area of Khirbet
Qumran. Archaeological fieldwork was conducted at Qumran
and close by from the late 1940s until 1956 by the École
Biblique et Archéologique Frangaise, Jerusalem, and was
directed by the late Dominican Father Roland de Vaux.
Fragments of approximately 930 Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek
manuscripts were found in eleven caves covering a period from
about 250 B.C. to the late first century A.D. In the
archaeological excavations a large enigmatic settlement and to a
lesser extent a graveyard was investigated on the plain beneath
the scroll-bearing caves (Tov et alii, 2000)
2. HISTORY OF RESEARCH
Qumran belongs to the best known archaeological sites in the
world. Several thousand articles and monographs have been
written mainly on the importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls to
Judaism and Christianity. Most of the scrolls were found in the
area of Khirbet Qumran. The fact that Biblical manuscripts were
included in the ancient library discovered at Qumran lead the
Christian scholars who were in charge of the expedition to
concentrate the work on the publication of the textual evidence,
resulting unfortunately in that the historical and archaeological
context of the site, as well as the publication of the
archaeological material were neglected. Most of the
archaeological finds from Qumran are still unpublished. The
picture that we had up to 2002 (See the Brown University
Conference, 2002, at www.brown.edu/Adminstration/
News Bureau/2002-03/02-031.html and www.kat.gr/kat/
History/Txt/E/MsZ/Qumran.htm) of Qumran was mainly based
on the work done by several generations of theologians and
philologists.
The authors of this paper were granted access to the
unpublished archaeological material of Qumran and the
archives of R. de Vaux in Jerusalem in 1990s. This underlined
the importance of initiating also a geographical, cartographical,
spatial and an astronomical study of the settlement and the
graveyard and the area of Qumran at the Dead Sea. A small
team of Finnish and British archaeologists was brought together
to conduct the first spatial archaeological survey study of
Qumran. A professional mathematician, physicist and
astronomer from The Observatory and Astrophysics Laboratory
at the University of Helsinki participated in the project and
analysed the raw data.
Consequently, the first comprehensive scientific study on the
archaeology of Qumran carried out by professional
archaeologists was published by the authors of this paper in
2002 (Lónnqvist and Lónnqvist, 2002). In 2003, our new theory
was accepted as one of the five leading theories on the
emergence, birth and development of the Qumran community
by the editor-in-chief of the main publication series of the Dead
Sea Scrolls, DJD (Discoveries in the Judaean Desert) (Tov,
2003).
3. SCOPE OF THE WORK
3.1. Objectives of the spatial study
The first goal of the spatial study was to see whether there were
any structural orientations in the settlements of Qumran and the
nearby Ein Feshka (assumed to have been used
contemporaneously with Khirbet Qumran by the same people),
which would indicate that there was a central and coherent
planning of the sites. The relationship of the ancient settlement
at Qumran to the large graveyard (50 m E of the settlement) of
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