Drinking Goblets

During period Ib there were some workshops at Qumran. One in particular was used for making pottery. It had facilities for washing the clay in a shallow tank, a potter’s wheel, and kilns. It is likely that much of the pottery found at Qumran, which represents a particular, consistent, yet unique collection of styles, was made in this workshop. The pottery helps date the occupation of Period Ib to the end of the Hellenistic period.

The first seven Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in 1947, were encased in pottery jars which protected them from the elements. As a result, these scrolls were almost complete.

Shown here – jars and jugs, bowls, drinking goblets.

See also-

• Sussmann, Ayala and Ruth Peled, Scrolls from the Dead Sea; An Exhibition of Scrolls and Archeological Artifacts from the Collections of the Israel Antiquities Authority. New York- George Braziller, 1993.
• Hershel Shanks, “Qumran—The Pottery Factory,” BAR 32-05, Sep-Oct 2006.
• Discovery and Acquisition, 1947–1956, Lawrence H. Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia, 1994.