Cave 4Q

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Cave 4Q is a cave in the marl plateau about 150 meters southwest of the archaeological site of Qumran on the Dead Sea . The double entrance, visible from afar, has become a symbol of Qumran. The cave contained about 15,000 fragments of scrolls in poor condition. They were only deposited there, not safely deposited and therefore exposed to natural processes of destruction.

Entrance to the 4Q cave

description

4Q is an artificially created double cave. The ground leveled by human hands enabled residential use; this distinguishes cave 4Q from natural caves in marl, which were only suitable as hiding places. Noticeable are holes at the same height in the cave wall, for which Lawrence Schiffman suggested an interpretation as wall anchors for antique bookcases.

The larger cave 4a is a maximum of 8 m long, 3.25 m wide and 3 m high. It has three chambers, one of which is almost a hall with an area of ​​around 8 × 3.25 m. The entrance is on the west; in the east there is a small window for ventilation. The southwestern neighboring cave 4b is up to 2 m long, 2.5 m wide and 2 m high. It consists of two chambers.

Archaeological exploration

Fragment of the Aramaic Book of Enoch (4Q201).

The team of Roland de Vaux led in September 1952 after under great time pressure excavations in Cave 4Q after they had already been searched ago by Bedouin thoroughly. Documentation of this archaeological exploration is inadequate, for example there are no photos of the scrolls in situ and the description of their location is not accurate. It was a rescue company in which as many ancient texts as possible were to be saved for research before they landed on the ancient market (losing the context of the find).

The archaeologists found a thick deposit of marl dust and dry animal droppings on the cave floor. Small hills indicated where scrolls were. Józef Milik remembered: “Like a cork, I carefully unscrewed a roll in the same direction. I immediately understood that it was a copy of the Book of Enoch ... The cave was cleared down to the natural rock. "

Cave 4b was almost empty.

In addition to thousands of parchment and papyrus remains, the archaeologists in cave 4a recovered over 100 18 cm long leather straps with which the rolls were originally wrapped, as well as fabric remnants, ceramics (twelve clay jugs, several plates and bowls, a saucepan, an oil lamp). The discovery of several leather tefillin (with contents) and a small mezuzah was remarkable . Scraps of wood were found and the Bedouins claimed to have thrown more pieces of wood from the cave down the slope. So the cave was furnished in antiquity, in which way it can no longer be reconstructed.

The scrolls from 4Q

Late antique depiction of a reader in front of an open bookcase in which the scrolls “like wine bottles today” were kept.

Caves 1Q to 4Q contained, on average, older scrolls than the rest of the Qumran caves. It can be statistically proven that this distribution of the roles in the individual caves cannot have come about by chance. The following interpretation assumes, with the majority of researchers, that the Dead Sea Scrolls were brought to the caves from the settlement of Qumran. Between 9 BC BC and 4 BC Qumran was destroyed by fire. Older scrolls must have been stored outside the settlement prior to this point (or they may have entered Qumran later). The interpretation of cave 4Q as a library is a good idea here. Cave 1Q could then be a hiding place in which the Qumran inhabitants had relocated some valuable scrolls from 4Q for better protection from the Romans before their settlement was destroyed in the Jewish War .

Suggested interpretation: library

Lawrence Schiffman sees the cave 4Q as the only place in the whole area of Qumran, where the often in terms of a signature Corpus "Qumran Library" adopted would have found quite real as a number of ancient scrolls in bookcases place. On the one hand, the holes in the cave wall, which could have been used to stabilize the wooden shelf construction, and, on the other hand, the proximity to the settlement, so that it is easy to reach, speak for this.

However, the Qumran findings do not match what is known about ancient librarianship . This collection of scrolls "belongs to a different tradition, neither Greek nor Roman."

Suggested interpretation: Geniza

Since a cave in the rock wall is quite impractical as a library by today's standards, Eliezer Sukenik and Karl-Heinrich Rengstorff had suggested an interpretation as a geniza . The interpretation as geniza can explain why the texts were so little protected against environmental influences: a geniza was used for temporary storage and collection of sacred texts, not for their permanent disposal.

Against this, however, speaks that Genizot have only been attested since the Middle Ages. They were created because damage to sacred texts could only be repaired to a certain extent and a worthy repository was needed for the writings that could no longer be restored. Behind this are regulations in the Jewish religious law that were binding in the Middle Ages, but cannot easily be transferred to antiquity. A fragment like 4Q51 shows that other standards applied in Qumran: tears were sewn, holes were patched.

Ancient visits after the destruction of Qumran

People probably visited cave 4Q even after the Qumran settlement ended. The dating of the oil lamp matches this. “A Hebrew text is described on the back with a Greek shopping list.” No statement can be made about the purpose of these visits and possible use as a cave.

Even before it was discovered by the Bedouins, someone had come in and searched the cave, scattered material and probably also taken it with them. On the other hand, it was possible to refute the assumption that the texts stored here were willfully torn up, for example by Roman legionnaires: 4Q365, a supposed example of such a padded scroll, had disintegrated along natural breaks in the parchment over the course of time.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra: Qumran . S. 122 (Since it is often no longer possible to determine whether a text fragment comes from 4a or 4b, all text finds were given the code 4Q.).
  2. ^ A b Johann Maier: The Qumran Essenes: the texts from the Dead Sea . tape 3 . UTB, Munich 1996, p. 7 .
  3. ^ Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra: Qumran . S. 120-121 .
  4. ^ Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra: Qumran . S. 32,135 .
  5. ↑ Yizhar Hirschfeld: Qumran . S. 74 .
  6. ↑ Józef Tadeusz Milik: Memories of a Discoverer (Interview) . In: World and Environment of the Bible . No. 9 , 1998, pp. 10-11 .
  7. ↑ a b Yizhar Hirschfeld: Qumran . S. 75 .
  8. ^ Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra: Qumran . S. 32 .
  9. ↑ a b Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra: Qumran . S. 162 .
  10. ↑ Lawrence Schiffman: Qumran and Jerusalem . S. 30.45 .
  11. ↑ George W. Houston: Inside Roman Libraries: Book Collections and Their Management in Antiquity . University of North Carolina Press, 2014, pp. 3 .
  12. ^ A b Joan E. Taylor: The Essenes . S. 293 .
  13. ^ Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra: Qumran . S. 151 .
  14. ^ Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra: Qumran . S. 122 .

Coordinates: 31 ° 44 ′ 29.5 ″  N , 35 ° 27 ′ 29 ″  E