Qumran Archaeology the Cemeteries of Term Paper

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"Secondly, experience has shown that military cemeteries are somewhat unique and easily recognizable by the fact that there is a high level of traumatic injuries in the population, generally on the left side of the body, where soldiers usually attempt to ward off blows from a right-handed attacker." (Zias) the assumption was that these graves were not an unplanned military grave because the normal thing to do at the time was to bury soldiers in mass graves. The Qumran Cemetery was a well planned sight that was too well organized and it showed a great deal of coordinated planning and use over time.

The women and children discovered on the Qumran sight could have put doubt in the theory that the sight was in fact Essene. But there were other theories to would justify a woman or child being buried at that particular cemetery. "Elder poses some interesting solutions to this difficulty, based upon the literary and archaeological evidence found at the cemetery of Qumran, in that celibate males lived and were buried in Qumran whereas non-celibate males and females and their families lived at Ain Feshkha and Ain el-Ghuweir even though no cemetery was found at the former site." (Zias) and other philosophies exist such as the graves of the women and children could simply have represented the death of someone that passed away during a holiday visit could explain the discrepancy.

There was an overwhelming amount of evidence to discredit the notion that there were women and children living at the Essene site. For starters, the direction of the graves of the women and children were not consistent with the direction of the male graves implying that these graves may have been put there at a different period or they did not hold the same significance to those who maintained the cemetery.

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Other details such as the dental remains showed that the individuals who lived in the Essene community were males that migrated to this area later in age so there were few to no children in the community and the children in the graves were not members of the immediate community. "The surprisingly little wear on the posterior dentition was clear evidence of a differing diet and environmental history between the two groups. Therefore, it is clear from the dental evidence that the males interred in the main cemetery were not indigenous to the desert region but came to the site after their formative years, thus explaining the differential between the contrasting dental pathologies seen in the two populations." (Zias) These and other factors all point out that the Qumran sight was used by the Essene all male community whether they were celibate of not and the discovery of women and children at the cemetery sight does not change those facts.

Discussion

This report was a review of the journal article called "Celibacy: Confusion Laid to Rest?" written by Joe Zias and published in the Dead Sea Discoveries journal, volume 7 in the year 2000. The author confirmed that the Qumran Cemetery was used by a known all male celibate Essene community who may have been the holders of the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in caves near Qumran. The author's approach was to resolve outstanding concerns that arose because there were controversial discoveries made of women and children in the cemetery considered male celibate. By using archaeological, anthropological, historical and literary disciplines to prove his theory, the author did an outstanding job pointing out some of the nuances of the Qumran cemetery, historical burial techniques and the Essene community.

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