Les grottes de Qumrân. État de la question suite à la publication d’un livre

Abstract

The recent publication of the proceedings of a conference held in Lugano, Switzerland, highlighted the caves related to the site of Khirbet Qumran, not only the eleven caves with manuscripts but also the other caves around. Remaining in the blind spot of the manuscripts, the caves, or rather the shelters in the vast majority of places, in the Judean desert provide information on the material culture of the ancient (permanent or temporary) occupants and by extension, on those who deposited the so-called Qumran manuscripts discovered between 1947 and 1956. The book raises essential methodological questions about the limitations of current archaeological data after the frequent use of the shelters by the moderns, about how the archaeologist selects published data, and about the uses and misuses of statistics.