An important and much awaited collection on the archaeology of Qumran has just been published under the double signature of Jean-Baptiste Humbert OP, and Marcello Fidanzio, coordinators of this collective work which gathers together the work of the best specialists in the archaeology of Qumran, contributions from a symposium held in Lugano in 2017.
Khirbet Qumrân and Aïn Feshkha IVA: Qumrân Cave 11Q Archaeology and New Scroll Fragments contains 288 pages of richly illustrated and carefully printed works, the result of a collaboration between the École Biblique et Archéologique Française of Jerusalem and the Istituto di Cultura e Archeologia delle Terre Bibliche of the faculty of theology of Lugano.
Jean-Baptiste Humbert OP, writes of the the purpose and significance of this publication: “Roland de Vaux died at the age of 67 without having produced the final report of his excavations in Qumran. Publications on the caves appeared later. But until the publication of this book nothing had yet been revealed about cave 11, which is however of great interest for research. Indeed its fame is due to the fact that it housed the famous Temple Scroll, one of the most significant manuscripts. Now publishing about the caves also puts the manuscripts in context, because for qumranologists the exhumation of the caves adds more to the understanding of these writings than does the Essene settlement situated below the caves.”