Tuesday, August 17, 2004

All archaeology, all the time

Archaeologists at Qumran, funded by fundamentalist Christian organizations, vow to prove that residents of the site indeed wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls -- contrary to recent assertions. They intend to send animal bones recently "found under the homes" for genetic testing, to prove that the leather on which the scrolls were written came from those animals.
Numerous problems with this, the most obvious being, even if they could prove this connection, it would merely show the scrolls were copied at Qumran, not that they were composed there.

UPDATE: More on this from The Jerusalem Post, which states, "The seven bone deposits of mules eaten and buried inside cleaning pots and storage jars by the Qumran community in the 1st century BCE will undergo DNA testing this week." Can anyone explain this? As far as I know, mules are: a. not eaten (by anyone -- and they are certainly not kosher) and b. not used for making parchment.

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