The
Dead Sea scroll bones tell a tale. Unfortunately, it's much sketchier
than Susan Guise Sheridan and other anthropologists had hoped
it would be.
After a recent analysis of skeletal remains exhumed from 18
graves at Qumran, the archeological site in Israel associated
with the ancient Dead Sea biblical scrolls, the Notre Dame forensic
anthropologist can say this for sure: One was a teenager who had
been ill most of his life, another was an old man who died in
his 60s, another was an older woman, and the remainder were adult
men, between 30 and 60 years of age. Nails from the coffins appear
to be Roman in origin. And that, more or less, is it.
Scholars have long believed the bones could shed light on the
community that created the earliest extant biblical texts dating
to the first century A.D. However, Sheridan says working on the
Qumran remains has been frustrating. Improper storage after excavation,
a small sample size and contamination prevented her from conducting
a full scientific analysis that would have yielded more than individual
life details. Over the years, heat and salinity have eroded many
scientific clues.
The Notre Dame anthropologist also was hampered because in most
cases only portions of the cranium and pelvis had been exhumed
instead of full skeletons. For these reasons, Sheridan was unable
to answer larger questions about the community's diet, overall
health and other characteristics of the population. Perhaps most
critically, she was unable to assign a date to the remains through
carbon-dating techniques. The bones lacked enough collagen for
analysis, and wood from the graves had been contaminated by the
paraffin preservation method used by earlier anthropologists.
For nearly half a century an aura of mystery has swirled around
the bones, which were exhumed in the early 1950s. Shortly after
being cataloged by age and sex, the material vanished. Apparently,
the collection was subdivided and "lost" in museum storage for
nearly 50 years, with some going to France, some to Germany and
the remainder staying in Jerusalem.
Finally, in 1999 a team of German researchers came upon their
portion of the collection and published an analysis of 22 skeletons.
Shortly thereafter the Jerusalem collection was found in an unmarked
storage box, and the chief archeologist of Jerusalem's Ecole Biblique
invited Sheridan to examine the material. He was familiar with
the Notre Dame anthropologist because for many years she has been
studying skeletal remains from an ancient Byzantine monastery
on the grounds of the French school, which is the oldest research
institute for biblical and archeological study in the Holy Land.
Subsequently, Sheridan also analyzed the remains in Paris, and
this past summer she inspected those in Germany. This made her
the only anthropologist to examine the entire collection.
* * *
(April 2004)
