Textiles – Network for the Study of Dispersed Qumran Cave Artefacts and Archival Sources (DQCAAS)

Qumran Cave 1Q Textiles Found in Leiden

November 3, 2019November 3, 2019Posted in Textiles1 Comment

As part of the DQCAAS project we have been seeking out ancient textiles from Qumran Cave 1Q which were published by Grace Crowfoot in DJD 1. These textiles were used to wrap up the Dead Sea Scrolls, pad out the jars and cover the openings. Once studied and published, they were gifted to various collections worldwide, from the Israel Antiquities Authority, to the British Museum and to the Palestine Exploration Fund. While we have been able to track down some of these, for example in the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (see blog post) it seems many of the textiles have been stored away and curators do not know their significance. Some of these textiles have been lost.

Very luckily, when King’s College London doctoral student Katie Turner signed up for a course in textiles at the Textile Research Centre in Leiden, she was told by director Gillian Vogelsang that there were some Qumran Cave 1 textiles there that she could study. When Katie reported this, we at DQCAAS got in touch with Gillian, and she set to photographing and cataloguing the pieces. Gillian has now put up a post on the Textile Research Centre website here.

We are very glad then to be able to share this information. The story is that Gillian was given these textiles by Elizabeth, the daughter of Grace Crowfoot (and Gillian’s teacher), when she helped her move from her larger house to a smaller place, in Norfolk, England, in the early 1980’s. They were in a small cigarette box with Elizabeth’s handwriting. These textile pieces still actually need to be looked at closely to see whether they correspond to any of the published examples.

It is planned that the Qumran Cave 1Q textiles that can now be located will be studied and published together in a future volume dealing with the archaeology of Qumran Cave 1Q, edited by Jean-Baptiste Humbert and Marcello Fidanzio.

[Featured image: Gillian Vogelsang, Textile Research Centre, Leiden ]

Newly Discovered Qumran Holding: World Museum Liverpool

March 7, 2019March 15, 2019Posted in Archaeology, artefacts, Ceramics, Other Organic Remains, Pottery, Textiles, UncategorizedTagged Gerald Lankaster Harding, Isabella Bossolino, John Henry "Harry" Iliffe;, Palestine Archaeological Museum;, Sandra Jacobs;, World Museum Liverpool4 Comments

The network team are delighted to report that following on from enquiries made by Joan Taylor, of the Museums of Liverpool, the curator Ashley Cooke found in their collections a Dead Sea Scroll jar and lid, and also linen. These had been purchased on 8 May, 1951 by the Liverpool Public Museums from the Palestine Archaeological Museum (represented by Gerald Lankaster Harding) for the sum of £50.00. At that time the curator in Liverpool was British archaeologist, John Henry ‘Harry’ Iliffe (1903-1960), whose museum career included posts as head of Classical collections at the Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology, Toronto (1927-1931); the first keeper of the Palestine Archaeological Museum, now the Rockefeller Museum, in Jerusalem (1931-1948); and Director of Museums in Liverpool (1948-1959).

Kindly note that the above preliminary images, taken by Sandra Jacobs, include the exterior profile of the jar, and are copyrighted by the Network for the Study of Dispersed Qumran Cave Artefacts and Archives. These photographs may not be used by others for publication purposes. We are currently trying to identify the precise textile, but clearly it is from Qumran Cave 1Q:

We extremely grateful to Dr Ashley Cooke (featured in the main post photograph) for making the archival correspondence available to the network team to verify the authenticity of this acquisition, as well as his hospitality at the Museum’s off-site warehouse when Isabella Bossolino and Sandra Jacobs arrived from London to photograph and draw the jar and lid.

Off-site storage, World Museums Liverpool.

Joan Taylor, ‘Finding Qumran Cave 1Q Artefacts’: Palestine Exploration Fund and Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society joint lecture, at the British Museum, 8 March 2018

March 9, 2018July 5, 2018Posted in Archaeology, Archives & Collections, artefacts, Other Organic Remains, Photographs, Pottery, TextilesLeave a comment

On 8 March, 2018, Joan Taylor gave a lecture in London on the quest to find Qumran Cave 1Q artefacts that have been dispersed around the world, and also considered some of the mysterious unprovenanced jars in various collections. Held in the Clore Education Centre of the British Museum, the lecture attracted over 200 people and led to some interesting discussions afterwards. The Network thanks the Palestine Exploration Fund and the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society for their interest in our work, now published in the Palestine Exploration Quarterly.

SOTS (Society for Old Testament Study) Centenary Presentation

July 19, 2017July 5, 2018Posted in Archaeology, Archives & Collections, Caves, Network, Pottery, Textiles, Written Memoirs & DocumentsTagged Cave 11Q, Cave 1Q, King's College London, Qumran Caves, Society for Old Testament StudyLeave a comment

At the recent SOTS (Society for Old Testament Study) Centenary Meeting, held at King’s College, London, the team reviewed the aims and achievements of the project, and explained how they are making available new findings via the website (www.dqcaas.com). Together with the project’s anticipated publications, the network is also feeding data towards a new book series on the archaeology of the Qumran caves edited by J. B. Humbert and M. Fidanzio. The very first volume of this series (on Cave 11Q) will be appearing next year. To date, the team have concentrated on materials connected with Qumran Cave 1Q and 11Q. In regard to Cave 1Q, there has been a particular focus on the jars dispersed around the globe in various museums and collections. Cave 11Q linen has been radiocarbon dated with interesting results. The photographic collection of the Allegro archive in Manchester Museum is currently being digitised, and other archival materials elsewhere continue to be identified. The network investigators concluded by informing the audience that they are keen to hear from anyone with photographs and materials of the Qumran caves from the 1950s and 1960s.

Professor Marcello Fidanzio in Amman.

July 18, 2017July 5, 2018Posted in Archives & Collections, Caves, Pottery, Scrolls, TextilesTagged Amman, Christophe Moulherat, EBAF, ISCAB, Jean-Baptiste Humbert, Jordanian Department of Antiquities, Mireille Bélis, textiles, The Qumran Caves Publication ProjectLeave a comment

On 17 July 2017 Professor Marcello Fidanzio undertook a mission within the framework of The Qumran Caves Publication Project (Ecole biblique et archéologique française, Jerusalem [EBAF] and ISCAB-FTL; series editors J.-B. Humbert and M. Fidanzio) focusing on a large selection of (undisplayed) textiles in Amman, whose professional examination has been entrusted to Dr Mireille Bélis and Dr Christophe Moulherat.

Reporting from the Jordan Museum in Amman Professor Marcello Fidanzio, of the Istituto di Cultura e Archeologia delle terre Bibliche (ISCAB), and Research Associate at the École Biblique et Archeologique Française de Jérusalem, confirms that several types of material found in the Qumran caves are preserved in the Jordan Museum Amman. These include manuscripts from the caves 1Q and 4Q and the Copper Scroll from 3Q cave; pottery and a large amount of textiles, as was first observed by George Brooke over twenty years ago (Brooke 1996, 1997, 2000). These materials can now be understood in connection with the archival records related to the time of the excavation held by the Ecole biblique et archéologique française, Jerusalem (EBAF), and remain important assets in the care of the Jordanian authorities.

Further information regarding the manuscript collection at Amman has been published by George Brooke, from his study at the museum in 1996 as follows:
‘Amman Museum,’ in Encyclopaedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Oxford: OUP, 2000).
‘The Dead Sea Scrolls in the National Archaeological Museum, Amman,’ al-Nadwah (al-Bayt University Journal) 8 (1997), 23-35.
‘The Dead Sea Scrolls,’ Jordaniana (Summer, 1996), 16-17.

Cave 1Q Linen at Cambridge Museum

June 22, 2016July 5, 2018Posted in Archives & Collections, QCD Links, TextilesTagged Biblical scroll wrapping, Cambridge, Crowfoot, Elizabeth Crowfoot, G. Bushnell, Gerald Lankaster Harding, Jordanian Department of Antiquities, Jordanian Department of Antiquitites, linen, linen. cotten, materials, perspex, Qumran, scroll wrapping, textile, woven cotten textileLeave a comment

Aware that Dr G. Bushnell at the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology had helped Elizabeth Crowfoot mount the Qumran linen in perspex, Joan Taylor got in touch with Imogen Gunn (Collections Manager, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge), to find out whether there may have been any Qumran materials held in their collection.The museum holds a piece of linen (Accession No. 1952:21, currently identified as “cotton”), catalogued as “prehistoric,” and described as follows: “Piece of plain woven cotton textile, mounted between two thin Perspex sheets. Wrapping from biblical scrolls.(Dimensions 11 inches in length; width 15 inches; source: Jordanian Department of Antiquities; place: Asia, West Asia, Palestine.” A further note on the catalogue card states: “Part of the wrappings of the recently discovered Biblical scrolls found in a cave in the Jordan valley. “ And in a later hand “i.e. the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

A handwritten letter from Dr Gerald Lankaster Harding, dated 27 July 1951, to Dr G. Bushnell confirms that the material was gifted to the University of Cambridge from the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, in acknowledgment of the help and kindness shown to Ms. Crowfoot. The letter has no archive reference and is currently held in the Museum’s 1951 correspondence file. https://www.instagram.com/p/BI5IV4hD-WB/