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The bodies in the graves of Qumran were, for instance, placed
according to a sophisticated celestial geography. The bodies
were oriented in the direction of north which was the source of
rebirth and life, and the south, were the souls were believed to
be dwelling, and the east were the sun rose from. Most of the
excavated bodies have the face turned east, the direction where
the stars and the sun was reborn, as to emphasize the impact of
celestial bodies on man's life.
5. CONCLUSIONS AND RESUMÉ
Before our survey, the settlement of Qumran had not been
studied in its archaeological and environmental context before.
The central planning that we have determined that existed at
Qumran in the Graeco-Roman period can be seen in the two-
axial grid system and the astronomical layout of the grids.
These demonstrate clearly that the settlement and the cemetery
at Qumran are contemporary and are produced by the same
community. Solar thinking and ancient solar and stellar
hierophanies must have influenced the builders of the settlement
and the cemetery at Qumran, as the axial directions measured
follow the solar and stellar declinations of the important
celestial bodies. This is confirmed by the solar calendar found
in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Tov, 2000), and recently published
sun-dial of an astrolab type (Albani and Glessmer, 1997).
The effects of the geoarchaeological processes that affected the
region in antiquity. should be re-evaluated. We have, for
instance, been able to show that a damaging earthquake did not
affect the area of Qumran in 31 B.C. as the excavators of the
site originally claimed. They thought that the main reason for
the *abandoning of Qumran' in the late Herodian period was the
earthquake. Instead, the marl terrace where the settlement of
Qumran is located was affected by corrosion through
weathering processes. This can be seen already from the
photographic documentation done during the past 40 years, for
instance, of the same water used as ritual baths. The
photographs revealed clearly that sediment structures at the site
are unstable, easily swelling and desiccating causing fissures,
rills and landslides, which at a first sight resemble tectonic
fractures but which are not. Also a devastating paleoflood that
lead to the submerging of the site of Qumran under the Dead
Sea around the turn of the millennium, is a possibility detectable
in the deposits of minerals found in the walls of the Qumran
ruins, the skeletons in the graveyard and the scroll wrappers in
the scroll caves that had been affected by salts from the Dead
Sea.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We wish to thank the École Biblique et Archéologique
Française, Jerusalem, and Father Jean-Baptiste Humbert in
particular for the photographs and the permissions. At the Israel
Antiquities Authority we thank Zvi Greenhut. Our special
thanks goes to Reino Anttila from Helsinki.
