Dr. Gary Gromacki
Associate Professor of Bible and Homiletics
Baptist Bible Seminary
Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania
<ggromacki>at<bbc>dot<edu>
Here is a picture of one of the jars used to store some Dead Sea Scrolls. This "scroll" jar was uncovered from Cave 1. The following scrolls were found in jars from Cave 1: the complete Isaiah scroll (1QIsa a), an incomplete Isaiah scroll (1QIsa b), the Genesis Apocryphon (1QapGen), the commentary on Habakkuk (1QpHab), the Rule of the Community (1QS), the Thanksgiving Hymns (1QH), and the War Scroll (1QM).
Jodi Magness writes, "There is perhaps no more distinctive object associated with Qumran than the cylindrical jars that reportedly contained the first scrolls discovered in Cave 1 (and which are therefore sometimes called "scroll jars). According to one account of the initial discovery, when the bedouins first entered Cave 1, they discovered a row of these jars covered with bowl-shaped lids. Most of the jars were empty, but one contained three scrolls, two of which were wrapped in linen. Two of the intact jars removed from the cave by the bedouins were purchased by Sukenik for the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In February and March of 1949, Harding and de Vaux conducted excavations in Cave 1. In addition to fragments of scrolls and linen, they recovered potsherds representing at least 50 different cylindrical jars and the bowl-shaped lids that covered them. Two years later, Harding and de Vaux conducted the first season of excavations at Qumran. Sunk into the floor of one of the rooms (L2) they found an intact but empty cylindrical jar covered with a limestone slab. On the floor beside it was a coin of the Roman Procurators dated ca. 10 C.E. The excavators noted that the jar was identical with those found in Cave 1, and concluded, 'We thus, even in the small area so far excavated, have a direct connection with the Scrolls." (Jodi Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002], 79-80).
The fact that this type of jar was found in the Qumran caves and in the community settlement by archaeologists is important evidence that the scrolls and the Qumran community are tied together. The scroll jar was 21.5 inches in height (54.8 cm) and 9.37 inches in diameter (24 cm).
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LINKS TO OTHER DSS WEB PAGES BY DR. GARY GROMACKI
Doctrine of God Doctrine of the Bible Doctrine of Man and Sin
Doctrine of Salvation Doctrine of the Community Doctrine of the Messiah
Doctrine of Eschatology Archaeology of Qumran Bibliography on the DSS
Web Sites on the DSS DSS Table of Contents