Figure 76

Scriptorium room at Qumran

Khirbet Qumran, on the northwestern side of the Dead Sea (see Map 1), is famous for the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS), however there has been significant archaeological work carried out at the site apart from the DSS, that also relates to the NT.

A prominent find is the scriptorium or writing room, measuring 43 by 13 feet (13 m by 3.6 m. See Fig. 29). This could have been where many of the DSS were copied and worked on (See Scriptorium Bench and Inkwell). If a mistake was made to a scroll, or they were worn out, then the scribe would place it in a special place called a Geniza. The caves where the DSS were discovered meet the criteria for Geniza Caves with cave four containing 15,000 fragments of an estimated 600 separate manuscripts.