03 January 2006
Researchers say that the discovery of a 2,000-year-old toilet at Qumram, one of the world's most important archaeological sites, could shed new light on whether the ancient Essene community was home to the authors of many of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In a new study, three researchers say that they discovered the outdoor latrine used by the ancient residents of Qumran, on the barren banks of the Dead Sea. They say the find proved the people living there two millennia ago were Essenes, an ascetic Jewish sect that left Jerusalem to seek proximity to God in the desert. Qumran and its environs have already yielded many treasures: the remains of a settlement with an aqueduct and ritual baths, ancient sandals and pottery, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, considered by some as the greatest archaeological find of the 20th century.
The scrolls, which include fragments of the books of the Old Testament and treatises on communal living and apocalyptic war, have shed important light on Judaism and the origins of Christianity. The researchers behind the latrine finding argue that it supported the traditional view linking the residents of Qumran with the Essenes. A description of Essene practice by the Jewish historian Josephus Flavius in the first century notes that Essene rules required them to distance themselves from inhabited areas to defecate and "dig a trench a foot deep" which was to then be covered with soil.
