Shaping Community: The Art and Archaeology of Monasticism: Papers from a symposium held at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum University of Minnesota March 10-12, 2000 9781841712338, 9781407352893

Table of contents :
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Preface
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Opening Remarks
Map of Major Sites
Introduction
Communal Meals and Sacred Space at Qumran
Hermitages and Spatial Analysis: Use of Space at the Kellia
The Monastery Nekloni in the Egyptian Forum
Joining the Community of Saints: Monastic Paintings and Ascetic Practice in Early Christian Egypt
Invisible in the Community? The Evidence for Early Women's Monasticism in the Southern Balkan Peninsula
Feeding Communities: Monasteries and Urban Development in Early Medieval Ireland
The Makurian Monasteries of Nubia
Inside and Outside the Precinct Wall: The Communities at Cluny
The Bordesley Abbey Precinct: The Definition and Use of Space in an English Cistercian Abbey
How Much Space Did Medieval Nuns Have or Need?
Architecture of Semi-Religiosity: The Beguinages of the Southern Low Countries, Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centuries
Shaping a Monastery Settlement in the Late Byzantine Balkans
Karyes, Capital City of Mount Athos: An Itinerary
Vatopedi Monastery: An Example of an Athonite Monastery
Glossary: Terms Relating to Organization and Architecture on Mt. Athos
Monastic Lessons
Benedictine Monastic Architecture: The Architectural Tradition Through Space and Time

Citation preview

BAR S941 2001  MCNALLY (Ed.)  SHAPING COMMUNITY: THE ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY OF MONASTICISM

Shaping Community: The Art and Archaeology of Monasticism Edited by

Sheila McNally

BAR International Series 941 B A R

2001

Shaping Community: The Art and Archaeology of Mona·sticism Papers from a symposium held at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum University of Minnesota March 10-12, 2000

Edited by

Sheila McNally

BAR International Series 941 2001

Published in 2016 by BAR Publishing, Oxford

BAR International Series 941 Shaping Community: The Art and Archaeology if Monasticism

© The editor and contributors severally and the Publisher 2001 The authors' moral rights under the 1988 UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act are hereby expressly asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be copied, reproduced, stored, sold, distributed, scanned, saved in any form of digital format or transmitted in any form digitally, without the written permission of the Publisher.

ISBN 9781841712338 paperback ISBN 9781407352893 e-format DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9781841712338 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library BAR Publishing is the trading name of British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd. British Archaeological Reports was first incorporated in 197 4 to publish the BAR Series, International and British. In 1992 Hadrian Books Ltd became part of the BAR group. This volume was originally published by Archaeopress in conjunction with British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd/ Hadrian Books Ltd, the Series principal publisher, in 2001. This present volume is published by BAR Publishing, 2016.

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PREFACE The papers published here stem from a symposium held at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum at the University of Minnesota on March 10, 11 and 12, 2000. The symposium brought together people from widely differing fields to examine and discuss similar issues. My first thanks go to the speakers, most of whose papers appear here. As soon as I approached them about the broad topic-what archaeology can tell us about communal life-, they greeted it with enthusiasm, developing it in many different directions. I also thank the diverse and interested audience, whose warm response greatly encouraged further undertakings. The fruitful exchange of views, both among the speakers and with the audience, lead us to hope for future cooperative ventures, formal and informal.

Minn.) presented a related exhibit, "the work of Monastic Hands: Hibemo-Saxon and early Medieval manuscripts." A brochure, Shaping Community: the Archaeology and Architecture of Monasticism, describes the contents of the exhibits. In that publication I have tried to express my gratitude to specific individuals and organizations who gave us material, helped in planning and in installation. Here I must confine myself to mentioning those who made the symposium possible, and who worked to insure its speedy publication. A wide spectrum of people at the University and in neighboring academic communities aided this activity. It was Garth Rockcastle, Department of Architecture, whose vision transformed my small, neat project into an openended one. The Planning Committee members (all from the University of Minnesota unless otherwise identified) consisted of Rutherford Aris, Regents professor emeritus, Chemical Engineering; Nicola Aravecchia, Classical and Near Eastern Studies; Kathyrn Reyerson, History and Center for Medieval Studies; Mark Stansbury O'Donnell, Chair, Art History, University of St. Thomas; John Soderberg, Department of Anthropology; John Steyaert, Art History; Columba Stewart O.S.B, St. John's University, Collegeville; and Peter Wells, Department of Anthropology. Oliver Nicholson, director of the Center for Medieval Studies, has continually given every sort of encouragement, advice, and practical assistance.

I have sought to publish these papers as quickly as possible in order to set the stage for such future work. I feel great appreciation for the way in which the speakers strove to meet early deadlines with sometimes unfamiliar guidelines. Given the exigent schedule, it is no wonder that some participants had conflicting obligations. Nichola Aravecchia had archaeological commitments, but happily Jill Keen was willing to take on the task of editing his paper and his illustrations for this volume. We are much indebted to her. Unfortunately, Wlodzimierz Godlewski, was unable to complete manuscripts before other responsibilities intervened. His two papers conveyed important information about monastic sites that are not well known, and are still under excavation. We reprint his abstracts here, together with some bibliographical references, as a poor way of recognizing his vital contribution to the conference.

We were fortunate in obtaining generous support. Interest from a variety of sources helped create a varied program. Major financial support came from the University of Minnesota McKnight Arts and Humanties Endowment. We also thank the College of Liberal Arts, the Graduate School, the Center for Medieval Studies, the Department of Art History, and the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Studies for making the symposium possible. James Tracy, director of the Center for Early Modem History provided the funds to bring two of our speakers, Constance Berman and Walter Simons. The Philip and Florence Dworsky Fund for Judaic Studies supplied funding for Jodi Magness. The College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture provided generous support, particularly for activities related to publication. The Dean of the College, Thomas Fisher, has been enthusiastically helpful all along the way. His opening remarks at the Symposium appear a prelude to this volume.

Both the architects whose presentations brought the conference to a stimulating close also had pressing professional commitments. For a long time I was afraid that neither one would be able to give us a written form of his presentation, which would have been a great lack. They provided a rich closing session, both because of their longterm practical engagement with monastic architecture, and because of the very different ways that they discussed their experience. Lee Tollefson talked about the history of Benedictine architecture as it effects an architect working for the Order today; he looked at whole complexes and discussed adapting tradition for contemporary communities. Garth Rockcastle, on the other hand, talked about ingredients in monastic architecture that can flourish in other settings. Tollefson' s present work for St. John's Abbey in Collegeville has expanded in ways that prevented him from giving us a text. Fortunately. Rockcastle was able to give us an abbreviated version of his talk, although he had to eliminate the array of images that illustrated his own use of ideas culled from monastic architecture.

The Chairman of the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Studies, William Malandra, has been a warm supporter of this project from its inception. The department's incomparable trio of secretaries, Judy Scullin, Barbara Lehnhoff and Curt Tilleraas, have been supportive far beyond the call of duty. Their ingenuity, expertise, and cheerful generosity have helped make the whole scramble more pleasure than pain.

The Symposium accompanied an exhibition that had two parts: "Uses of Space" in the Weisman Art Museum, and "Sources of Knowledge in the James Ford Bell Library of the University. The University of St. Thomas (St. Paul,

The editors of the British Archaeological Reports, David

V

Davison and Rajka Makjanic swiftly and warmly welcomed this volume. They were always quick to respond to queries and to offer understanding encouragement when minor and major mishaps caused repeated delays.

above all, weeding out my typing errors, assisted by his wonderful secretary, Liz Harry. As far as possible we have followed the forms used by the Library of Congress, the Harvard Libraries, and the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. All three authorities practice a prudent inconsistency. This volume certainly contains inconsistencies, and I can only hope they are not too imprudent.

Editing these papers, having the opportunity to read them closely several times, has been a delight. Major assistance with the editing, as with the initial symposium planing ,was given by Jill Averil Keen. Her passion for accuracy, expert knowledge of the subject, and sympathetic sense for the individual styles of the authors made her invaluable, at the same time that her energy and humor lighted many long sessions. Carol Masters did the copy editing, trying to achieve a semblance of consistency, weeding out weak writing, and always smilingly contriving to fit yet another packet of pages into her life. Judy Scullin did a final check .

Digitizing and reworking plans for the exhibition and the publication was done first by Todd Brenningmeyer and Mack Conachen, later by Michael Nelson. Barbara Lehnhoff redrew the Bordesley maps, and helped extensively with the technical aspects of preparing the plates. I am deeply indebted to Brent Allison and, especially, to Kimberly C. Kowal of the University of Minnesota Map Library for assisting me to make the map in ArcView. Emily Wright also worked on scanning, editing, and formatting plates as well as filing and keeping the project organized.

Hoping to serve a broad readership, I have tried to avoid using abbreviations or technical terms that are useful to workers in some specific field of study, but can baffle those outside it. Unfortunately, despite much striving, the Macintosh software we were using did not allow us to use correct Slavic accents, a blemish I greatly regret. Since Greek script never survived emailing or disc transfers, we could not have produced this volume without the expertise and patience of Soterios Stavrou at the Modem Greek Studies Center at the University of Minnesota. He spent hours advising on form, tracking down references, and,

We prepared these texts and plates for printing. submitting them on a CDROM. This activity involved us all in learning more than we expected to about the vagaries of continually new and improved software. The technical side could never have been carried out without the expertise and ready helpfulness of Michael Nelson, who is doing the final formatting and preparing the CDROM.

VI

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

V

Opening Remarks Thomas Fisher Map of Major Sites

2

Introduction Sheila McNally

3

Communal Meals and Sacred Space at Qumran Jodi Magness

15

Hermitages and Spatial Analysis: Use of Space at the Kellia Nicola Aravecchia

29

The Monastery Nekloni in the Egyptian Fayoum Wlodzimierz Godlewski

39

Joining the Community of Saints: Monastic Paintings and Ascetic Practice in Early Christian Egypt Elizabeth Bolman

41

Invisible in the Community? The Evidence for Early Women's Monasticism in the Southern Balkan Peninsula Carolyn S. Sniveley

57

Feeding Communities: Monasteries and Urban Development in Early Medieval Ireland John Soderberg

67

The Makkurian Monasteries of Nubia Wlodzimierz Godlewski

78

Inside and Outside the Precinct Wall: The Communities at Cluny David Walsh

79

Bordesley Abbey Precinct: The Definition and Use of Space in an English Cistercian Abbey David Walsh How Much Space did Medieval Nuns Have or Need? Constance Berman Architecture Of Semi-Religiosity: The Beguinages of the Southern Low Countries, Thirteenth To Sixteenth Centuries Walter Simons

Vil

91

100

117

Shaping a Monastery Settlement in the Late Byzantine Balkans Svetlana Popovic

129

Karyes, Capital City of Mt. Athos: an Itinerary Phaidon Hadjantoniou

147

Vatopedi Monastery: An Example of an Athonite Monastery Phaidon Hadjantoniou

161

Glossary: Athonite Monastic Institutions and Architecture Phaidon Hadjantoniou

177

Monastery Lessons Garth Rockcastle

179

Benedictine Monastic Architecture: The Architectural Tradition Through Space and Time Lee Tollefson

V111

189

Opening Remarks, Conf erenee, March, 2000 SHAPING COMMUNITY: THE ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY OF MONASTICISM THOMAS R. FISHER

I want to say a few words about the importance of this conference from the perspective of my discipline, architecture. At a conference a couple of years ago at Cornell, the New York Times critic Herbert Muschamp asked the rhetorical question: why do architects no longer talk about religion? By religion, he didn't mean religious structures-churches, synagogues-for there is an extensive literature on that subject. Rather, I interpreted his question to mean: why doesn't our discipline talk about the relation of architecture to religious ideas, to belief systems, to moral value? And it is here that a conference such as this can make a tremendous difference to architecture. My discipline has been reduced, in this century, to one licensed to look after the physical health, safety, and welfare of people-an important enough task-but one much more restrictive than the role architecture has long played in human culture. Nowhere does it state that architects should also care about human happiness, social interaction, intellectual challenge, spiritual renewal. Indeed, architecture has been so reduced by the state to a matter of physical accommodation that its very existence has been called into question by those who see no difference between it and mere construction. This conference reminds us that architecture has had, in the past, a responsibility that goes beyond our physical health, personal safety, and material welfare. Monasteries show how architecture represented ideas other than the utilitarian, hedonistic, and materialistic values that have come to dominate architectural practice today. Let me give two examples: The ancient world evolved four different conceptions of the good life: the Platonic/Aristotelian idea of the good life involving intellectual pursuits, the Epicurean idea of it involving social interaction, the Augustinian idea of it involving spiritual contemplation, and the Hedonistic idea of it involving personal pleasure.

We live in a time in which hedonistic values-evident in the material accumulation and resource depletion of the developed world-have overpowered other notions of a good life. But the monastic tradition shows how rich those other conceptions can be; that a life devoted to intellectual development, community life, and spiritual contemplation can be as pleasurable and as fulfilling as one focused on material consumption-an important lesson as we search for more sustainable ways of living. Another example pertains to the question of community. Richard Sennett in his book Flesh and Stone argues that the medieval religious community served as "a place of moral reference" in the city. He goes on to say that, "medieval economic and religious developments pushed the sense of place in opposite directions .... [Where] the economy of the city gave people a freedom of individual action they could not have in other places, the religion of the city made places where people cared about each other." Such differences-between the economy of cities and the religion of cities, between the seeking of freedom through community or the seeking of freedom from community-are religious matters as much as architectural ones, and they pertain as much to what we construct today as they did to activities of the Middle Ages. If, as Herbert Muschamp claims, architects no longer talk about religion, then we, who live out our lives in buildings, are all poorer because of it. Just 150 years ago, the critic John Ruskin saw architecture and religion as inseparable. What has changed since then in the way we talk and think about these disciplines? What might each discipline learn from the other, and why has each become, in some sense, blind to the other? Those are complex questions, but I know that, through conferences such as this one, we might begin to formulate answers to them. DEAN, SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55455 [email protected]

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400 0 400 800 Kilometers N

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Old Dongola Map of major sites discussed in this book.

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INTRODUCTION SHEILA MCNALLY The project that led to these papers started with a limited scope: to mount a small exhibition illustrating excavations at monasteries. The exhibition was to make three neat didactic points: (1) that monasticism always involves various communal relationships; (2) that archaeology can provide information about such relationships that the literature does not provide; and (3) that we can best analyze a monastery's external and internal relationships when we study its remains as a whole, rather than viewing its church or any other part in isolation.

beyond that issue. She gives this book a provocative start by raising basic questions about the nature of asceticism. Askesis is a Greek word meaning discipline or training, and generally interpreted as meaning self-denial. The term monasticism often, but perhaps not invariably, implies asceticism. Magness indicates sharp distinctions between the Essene and the Christian versions of ascetic life. She does not consider, as has been suggested, that the one grows out of the other, although she does envisage possible links between their developments.

When Garth Rockcastle became co-director of the project, he began to open the scope of exploration. The people whose papers are published here have further enlarged its possibilities. The original propositions remain valid, but this collection of essays shows the many variations of community, and of material evidence and the ways to use it. Most important, they make it clear that studying "a monastery as a whole" is not a clear-cut aim, perhaps not either a possible or a desirable one. Just as there are always overlapping communities, so there are overlapping physical wholes to investigate.

Magness also shows clearly the importance of archaeological evidence used in combination with appropriate written sources. Having at her disposal the complete plan of a site, and precise records of the places where pottery and bones had been recovered, she can draw attention to peculiarities and then search for possible explanations in the documents.

Experiments: monk and nun, hermit and cenobite

Christian monasticism seems to begin in Egypt. A fourth century Egyptian document contains the earliest surviving use of the Greek word monachos, source of our word monk, to designate a particular sort of dedicated Christian. The word means one who is alone: it may refer to celibacy or freedom from family ties as the defining characteristic, although some scholars think it refers to poverty, or, more broadly, to single-mindedness (Judge 1977; Fry et al. 1981: 301-13; cf. Murray 1975: 13.) At first, almost none of these men were priests; later it became much more common to be both monk and priest. In some traditions that dual role has become the norm; in others it is still very much the exception (Fry et al. 1981: 129-30. The Greek Orthodox Church gives a special name, hieromonk, to a monk who is a priest).

With one pertinent exception, this exploration has been limited to the Christian tradition, to create some common ground for discussion. Within that tradition, we have not tried to present every major type, or to trace a complete historical development. The aim has been rather to illuminate basic issues concerning monasteries as communities, or parts of communities. We hope the inquiries provide insights that provoke thought about other monastic experiences, both within and without the Christian tradition. In this introduction, I would like to provide some basic background information about Christian Monasticism. Even though chronological development is not our main concern, terms and institutions may be clearest if presented in a basic historical sequence, indicating where these papers fit. 1

Similarly dedicated women were at first characterized as virgins or widows. The feminine of monachos could be used, and gradually nun, from nonna, originally a title of respect, came to be common in English, French and German (Fry et al. 1981: 320-21).

Forms of asceticism

The definition of Christian monasticism begins in the fourth century of our era, but its roots must reach into earlier ways of life. The first paper discusses a related but, in the eyes of its writer, fundamentally different communal religious life: that of the Essenes at Qumran some five centuries earlier. Invited to address a question of the use of evidence-whether we can recognize a religious community through archaeological evidence-Jodi Magness went far

Two basic approaches to monasticism quickly appeared. First, St. Anthony (d. 356) and other men and women went out into the desert to live alone. They were called anchorites or hermits, words drawn from the Greek text of the Gospel of Matthew (14: 13): [Jesus] withdrew [anachorein] .. .into a desert place [eremos topos] by himself." An anchorite is one who withdraws; a hermit is one who lives in the desert-later, often a symbolic desert-and his or her way of life is called eremitic (Fry et al. 1981: 17).

1 I am here giving my interpretations: I hope that the authors agree with them, and apologize in advance if I have misunderstood them.

Very soon, an alternative arose: St. Pachomius (d. 379)

3

INTRODUCTION advocated living in communities following a common rule of behavior. This way of life is called cenobitic, from the Greek word koinobion or common life (on the words koinobion and koinonia in Pachomius' thinking, see Fry 1982: 25). Koinobion was originally used for the buildings. Monasteria at first referred to any dwelling of a monk, including a hermitage, and only later came to be the preferred word for communal dwellings (Patrich 1995: 13). In modern English, convent, from the Latin conventus, a gathering, has become the popular term for a monastery of women. Recent scholarship favors nunnery. Here I will use monastery, although in the Roman Catholic Church the word has come to have a technical meaning that does not always apply.

quarters. Elizabeth Bolman suggests a more stable aspect of monastic life when she discusses spiritual practices, ways of looking and contemplating that became pervasive. She looks at a single cell, concerned not with its physical access, but with the way its paintings open up communion with another world. Both Aravecchia and Bolman find material evidence enlightening, but they relate it to literary evidence in different ways. Aravecchia notes that the surviving literary evidence paints a lively picture of monks talking to each other and receiving guests, but does not tell us about the buildings where these encounters occurred. Little in the Apophthegmata Patrum would suggest the complex living arrangements that the archaeological record demonstrates, but if a discrepancy exists, it may be a matter of date. The written stories may have been compiled in the fifth or sixth centuries, when the more elaborate ground plans were just beginning to appear.

Whether they were alone or living in groups, these early Egyptian monks and nuns received many visitors seeking practical help, moral advice, and spiritual inspiration. The pressure of such visitors on a lonely hermit might occasionally even drive him into a community, where others would help to provide hospitality. Our copious written sources for the lives of these early monks, often written by their visitors, include the Apophthegmata Patrum (translations, Ward 1975a and b); John Cassian's Conferences (translation, Ramsay cl997); Historia Monachorum (translation, one version, Russell 1980; for a fuller list of sources, see Patrich 1995: 359).

Bolman finds a tight fit between sources and material evidence: paintings show how the values mentioned in the Apophthegmata functioned in a monk's daily life. She discusses a single example, but she notes that certain subjects appear over and over, first in private spaces and then in churches, apparently after the time when the Apophthegmata were compiled. It is worth considering whether the cenobitic communities may have fostered greater stability in practice, or whether internal spiritual practices may everywhere have been more stable than external relationships.

The eremitic and cenobitic lives can be poles apart, but there have always been many stages in between. One such adaptation that began to develop in Egypt already in the fourth century was the "city of hermits" (often called a laura or lavra): the large gathering of hermits living in small separate dwellings with a common church and eating place. One of the most famous of these was the Kellia, at the edge of the Libyan desert.

From Egypt, monasticism spread rapidly in all directions. Nubia became an important center, closely allied to the Coptic Church in Egypt. Godlewski gave a paper on the work the Polish Center for Mediterranean Archaeology has done recently on monasteries in Nubia, including their rich development in the later medieval period. This report is again represented here only by its abstract.

No paper in this collection considers the very earliest phases of Egyptian monasticism. Three scholars dealt with the slightly later developments. Nicola Aravecchia analyzes the later phases, roughly sixth to ninth century, of life at the Kellia. Wlodzimierz Godlewski gave a paper on another "semi-anchoretic" complex, represented here only by his abstract "The Monastery Nekloni in the Egyptian Fayum." Elizabeth Bolman discusses material of the same approximate period, but from a cenobitic monastery, the monastery of Apa Apollo and Arna Rachel at Bawit in Upper Egypt.

Caroline Snively discusses the northward spread of monasticism, especially in the province of Macedonia during the fifth and sixth centuries. She reminds us that under some circumstances archaeology may not have a significant contribution to make. Scholars, she argues, have been too quick to identify buildings in the Balkans as monasteries. People dedicated to religious observance may live alone or in groups without requiring types of spaces or material goods that would stand out in the archaeological record. The clearest surviving evidence of such lives consists of the gravestones of women, found in several places that are not near identifiable monastic structures. Variation in the inscriptional evidence for women living dedicated religious lives shows that a spirit of experiment, of flexibility, prevailed here as in contemporary Egypt as people tried to work out the practical implications of new concepts.

Aravecchia's graphics clearly illustrate how continually and significantly community life changed at the Kellia. Monasticism was still a highly experimental activity. During the four centuries or more that the Kellia existed, the monks were continually building and rebuilding. We may not at present fully understand the changes, but we see that there were more and more inhabitants and visitors in the individual building units, and that relationships among them became more complex. Arrangements for hospitality, involving both common prayer and communal dining, received increasing attention. The layering of spaces, however, made it possible for people to spend much of their time alone. Balancing the values of interaction and of solitude seemingly called for continual adjustments in living

Monasticism had apparently spread to Ireland before the time of St. Patrick (late fifth century), but certainly flourished during his lifetime and thereafter. It took many forms, ranging from the remote hermitage above the austere 4

SHAPING COMMUNITY island monastery of Skellig Michael (Horn cl 990) to the prosperous mainland monastery of Clonmacnoise that John Soderberg discusses. Founded in the 540s, Clonmacnoise became one of the largest and most powerful of the Irish monasteries. Numerous small excavations have taken place there. They have not traced a total layout, but have built up an impression of a sprawling complex in which small structures proliferated without any formal planning. Soderberg addresses the possibility that such monasteries initiated radical social change, constituting the first cities in Ireland. Scholars promoting this view have pointed to urban structural features mentioned in documents, but the documents do not date the structures. Material finds from recent stratigraphic excavation can be dated more precisely. These finds include approximately 100,000 animal bones, and Soderberg here examines a group that belong to the early period, roughly seventh and eighth centuries. He finds that the slaughter patterns suggest that Clonmacnoise had developed an urban style of life within a century or so of its foundation (at roughly the time that the Kellia were reaching their greatest complexity).

monastery for a long time .... They have built up their strength, and go from the battle line in the ranks of their brothers to the single combat of the desert. ... Third, there are the sarabaites, the most detestable kind of monks ... with no experience to guide them, no rule to try them .... Their law is what they like to do, whatever strikes their fancy .... Fourth and finally, there are the monks called gyrovagues, who spend their entire lives drifting from region to region .... It is better to keep silent than to speak of all these and their disgraceful way of life. Let us pass them by, then, and with the help of the Lord, proceed to draw up a plan for the strong kind, the cenobites (Regula Sancti Benedicti, 1, 1-12, trans. Fry et al. 1981: 169-71). Both Basil and Benedict recommended a day divided by regular periods of communal prayer, including time for study and for work. The work should include service both to those within the community and to outsiders.

Standardization: Rule, order, Typichon and architecture Their writings had different purposes and different types of effects. Some versions of the Rule of St. Benedict include the statement that "it is called a rule [Latin regula, literally a straight edge] because it regulates the lives of those who obey it" (Fry et al. 1981: 168-169). By the ninth century most Western monasteries had adopted this Rule. Only in Ireland did an indigenous form of monasticism, usually without a written Rule, prevail for a few more centuries. As time went on, powerful monasteries like Cluny often assumed control over others, until eventually most monasteries belonged to a system of communities called an "order" (Knowles 1966). Additional orders came into being, and a technical vocabulary developed, designating men in some orders as monks, some as deacons, friars, or simply "religious," used as a noun.

Voices soon rose to control the early spirit of experiment. Important among those were St. Basil in the East (ca. 330379) and St. Benedict in the West (ca. 480-ca. 550). Their precepts have dominated the development of monastic life in their respective regions down to the present day. St. Basil strongly advocates the communal, or cenobitic life, saying: I have learned that a life lived in common with others is more useful for many purposes. In the first place, even in the matter of bodily needs, no man is sufficient himself, but we require each others' aid ... .In the solitary life what we have is useless to anyone else, and what we ourselves want cannot be supplied ... the life of complete seclusion has only one aim, that each may serve his own needs, but this is plainly opposed to the law of charity which the Apostle [Paul] fulfilled, who sought not his own profit, but the profit of many, that they might be saved .... and in solitude, when a man has no companionship in his life, it is impossible to find [an] advisor (St. Basil reg.fus. quoted in Morison 1912: 41).

Basil the Great offered guidelines, not a Rule in the Western sense. For him, "the only possible rule or norm for Christian conduct was Scripture" (Fry et al. 1981: 32). Each Orthodox monastery establishes its own regulations, usually in a Typichon, or founding document. The Typicha generally build on the advice of Basil and other saints, but do not adopt a ready-made text in the way that Western monasteries have done.

Gregory of Nazianzus thought that in time Basil came to view the eremitic life more favorably (orat. 43, 62, cited by Fryetal.1981: 33).

Although Benedict praised the erem1t1c life while Basil criticized it, hermits have remained more common in the Eastern church, living in ways varying from complete isolation to loose groupings to dependency on a cenobitic establishment. The typichon of an Eastern monastery may make provision for both cenobitic and eremitic life, leaving room for variations that multiply over time (see below and Hadjiantoniou, Vatopedi, this volume). In the West, cenobitic life became the norm (but see Gilchrist 1994: 177186; Venarde 1997). Eremitic revivals have adopted some of the conventions of communal life: hermits live in seclusion, but often in groups under an abbot or abbess, and following a written Rule (Fry et al. 1981:127-28).

St. Benedict, on the other hand, praises both forms, but considers the cenobitic the more practical norm. He condemns experiment and is outraged by those who have no Rule or stability in their lives: There are clearly four kind of monks. First there are the cenobites, that is to say, those who belong to a monastery, where they serve under a rule and an abbot. Second, there are the anchorites or hermits, who have come through the test of living in a 5

INTRODUCTION None of the papers from this conference concern the period when stabilization and codification of practice were growing in both East and West. In the exhibition that gave rise to the conference, we illustrated the architectural developments through the Eastern examples of St. Catherine's in the Sinai, and the Great Lavra on Mt. Athos, and the Western examples of the Plan of St. Gall and Cluny. The following discussion indicates a little of what we may learn by looking at plans.

At Great Lavra a large holy water fountain stands on the most heavily used pathway, the one between the refectory and the church. There the fountain establishes a focus for continual casual interaction between monks, as well as for occasional ceremonies, namely the Blessing of the Water on the Feast of the Baptism of Christ, and the lesser blessings at the beginning of each month. (The fountains that often stand in the center of western cloister garths do not have these functions.) A type of monastic plan based on Great Lavra developed and influenced other monasteries in the Balkans (see Popovic this volume).

St. Catherine's came into being partly because of pilgrimage. Early Christians made arduous journeys to Mt. Sinai, the site of the Burning Bush where Moses heard God's voice and of the peak where he received the Ten Commandments. Monks built hermitages to help the travelers. Then in the sixth century the Byzantine emperor Justinian established a monastic community in a grand, walled complex. This monastery, still functioning today, provides one of the earliest examples of characteristics repeated over and over in monasteries of the Eastern Christian world. High outer walls conceal what is within. Housing for both monks and guests lines the inner walls. Living spaces face an irregular central courtyard dominated by a free-standing church. The church and the outer walls preserve Justinian's construction, with some additions. So does the building opposite the church. Most of the remaining buildings are newer, sixteenth century and later, but small soundings made in the fifties and sixties led to tentative identifications of the early monks' quarters, their kitchen, and space for guests (Forsyth and Weitzman 1973; fig. 1 is a plan based on their description).

When St. Athanasios came, Mt. Athos was already home to many hermits, some perhaps living in associations not unlike the Egyptian Kellia (Burridge 1976: 19-26; Morris 1996; Theocharides c1992: 91; Foundas cl992: 39-40). These hermits bitterly protested the introduction of the cenobitic life, which they saw as inferior to their more isolated spiritual endeavor. Their protests failed, but compromises developed. More monasteries were founded, and hermitages survived as dependencies of cenobitic communities. Today, some monks still live as isolated hermits in what are now known as hesychasteria. Others live in small groups of houses referred to as kellia, usually for a senior monk and his disciples as at the earlier Egyptian Kellia. Since the sixteenth century, another type of settlement has appeared: small villages of monks called sketes (for examples of the last two possibilities, see Hadjiantoniou' s articles in this volume). The first major piece of evidence for developing standardization in the West is the Plan of St. Gall, dated to the early ninth century. This is an architectural drawing sent to the Abbot of the Benedictine Monastery of St. Gall (in present day Switzerland) sometime between 820 and 830. It has been preserved there ever since, therefore becoming known as the St. Gall Plan. Whatever its original purpose (for one interpretation, see Horn and Born 1979 and Price 1982; for another, Jacobson 1992), it provides a treasury of information about life in Western monasteries. From the detailed explanations written on the plan, we know the functions of most of the spaces (fig. 3).

In 963, St. Athanasios the Athonite founded a monastery, Great Lavra, that had some of the architectural elements found at St. Catherine's, and that created an important model for later foundations (fig. 2). Great Lavra is on Mt. Athos, a narrow, rocky peninsula off the northeastern coast of Greece, and survives today as the most important of the peninsula's twenty monasteries. No excavation has taken place, so there is uncertainty about some aspects of the original (Theocharides 1996: 211-12), but several tenth century features survive: the walls, the church, the dining hall, and a fountain. Like St. Catherine's, the Great Lavra has a high outer wall, a free standing church, and the dining hall facing that church, all of stone. Two elements significantly shaping the common life inside the walls are the dining hall or refectory (trapeza in Greek), and the fountain (Burridge 1976: 289-90; Theocharides cl992).

About half the buildings, mainly on the south and west, are for agricultural or craft activities, which would bring designated monks together with the tenants and servants of the abbey for those specific purposes. The next largest number are spaces intended for the monks alone. These buildings divide into three groups each around a cloister. The Plan provides the earliest indisputable evidence for that element, so important in Wes tern monastic architecture to the present day: the open courtyard with porches around it. The center of the whole complex, and the center of monastic life, is the large cloister used by the main body of the community. That cloister gives access to common sleeping quarters, a common dining room (the refectory) and the church. Buildings at the north and west serve special groups of lay people: poor visitors, rich visitors, and students.

Eating together is essential to cenobitic monasteries. Usually, no outsiders are admitted. The monks or nuns sit at long tables while one of them reads aloud. Both St. Basil and St. Benedict urged this: Let there be one fixed hour for taking food, always the same in regular course. [There should be reading, which] should be listened to with greater pleasure than that with which we eat and drink, so that our mind may seem in no way to be distracted by bodily pleasure, but rather to rejoice in the words of the Lord, even as he who found them "sweeter than honey and the honeycomb" (St. Basil, reg.brev. 180, quoted Morison 1912).

The church, much the largest building, stands on one side of the cloister, between the areas for travelers and those for the monks. It serves as a border and place ofintersection wit the outside world. Its towers would serve to advertise the 6

SHAPING COMMUNITY monastery to outsiders fom a distance.

cohesion. It gives inhabitants little individual privacy, but maximizes their group privacy at the same time that it provides many specialized places for them to carry out their service to outsiders.

The essentials of this plan recur over and over in the monasteries of Western Europe (and many parts of the New World). A grand later example is the monastery of Cluny, here represented by the plan of its third rebuilding, Cluny III, published by Kenneth Conant (1968, the basis for fig. 4). Resting on evidence from selective excavation, standing structures, old drawings and prints, and literary sources, much of this reconstruction is speculative. The overall configuration however is plausible, and echos many characteritics of the St. Gall Plan.

The plan published as Cluny III may not represent one single phase of the Abbey's life, but certainly includes the major ingredients of the developed monastery. It gives less space for agriculture and crafts, surely continuing but now presumably less integrated with the monastery proper. It still envisages relationships between monks and their guests similar to those of the St. Gall Plan (although the spaces for guests are among the less well documented parts of this proposed reconstruction).

It is interesting to compare these plans with the earlier plans from the Kellia (see Aravecchia, this volume) and the Eastern plans of St. Catherine's and Great Lavra. They foster quite different types of interactions. In all these examples, courtyards give access to many other spaces (in some sense, "control" those spaces: see Aravecchia, who analyzes these plans in more detail).2 There the similarity stops. Buildings at the Kellia provide maximum privacy, creating divisions both between the inhabitants of a cell, and between inhabitants and outsiders. Anyone, inhabitant or guest, enters through the same outer door and the same courtyard, but an outsider can go directly to visitors' quarters without passing through the monastic area. Monks inhabit layered series of spaces, so they can go easily from room to room and perform various activities without encountering each other, much less a guest. The number of people likely to be inside one cell is small, still further cutting down on the likelihood of chance interactions. The architecture facilitates planned encounters, affords room for personal privacy, and does little to foster the development of long-term communal relationships.

The typical Mt. Athos monastery occupies a pos1t10n intermediate between the Kellia and the St. Gall plan. At Great Lavra and its successors, as in the Kellia, everyone, visitor and inhabitant alike, usually enters by a common gate into a single courtyard that controls the remainder of the spaces. At Mt. Athos, however, the entry is controlled, and we have no evidence for such control at the Kellia. (Various restrictions might apply at Eastern monasteries: for instance, women and men often may not enter the monasteries of the opposite sex. Access at Mt. Athos is unusually limited, not only restricted to men but requiring special short-term permission even to enter the peninsula. St. Catherine's welcomes guests of both sexes and many religions. Its present plan, with mosque and extensive visitors' quarters, suggests the difference. In the West, norms have tended toward seclusion for the cloister area, and inclusiveness outside it, but both rule and practice varied.) The position of the church, however, breaks the Eastern monastery courtyard into subsidiary parts, decreasing the likelihood of casual interaction. Lay visitors and monks may have potential access to much of the same exterior space, but in practice visitors may not penetrate very deeply into the monastery. Today, monks have more individual space both on Mt. Athos and at Great Lavra than the plan of St. Gall provides, although not so much as they had at the Kellia. To move from work to prayer to eating they must continually walk through passages where they will encounter each other, and perhaps guests, but they do not sleep in large communal dormitories. The original sleeping arrangements may have been more like those of the St. Gall Plan (Burridge 1976, 288; see Snively, this volume). Alice Mary Talbot points out that women's monasteries in the Middle Ages sometimes had common dormitories, and sometimes individual cells (1998: 4, n. 124; on the change to individual sleeping quarters in the West, see Fry et al. 1981).

The Kellia as a whole must have had more monks than a later Western monastery, but they lived in separate houses. The Plan of St. Gall envisages much larger numbers in close proximity, both as inhabitants and as guests. It includes numerous courtyards, controlling a variety of spaces. No one would commonly enter all of them. The dominant courtyard is the main cloister at the right (south) of the church. That cloister controls all the spaces most monks used in their daily lives: the church, the dormitory, the refectory or dining room, the workrooms. We know the cloister was used for ceremonial community activity, but it would also foster casual encounters. Through the porches monks would go, alone or in procession, from their dormitory on the east to the church on the north, then from the church to the dining room or refectory on the south. At other times, anyone walking or praying here would probably be accompanied by others doing the same thing, and passed by those coming or going about business.

The Athonite design offers more individual privacy than the plan of St. Gall, but less group privacy.

Outside access to this courtyard, on the other hand, was limited. We know from written sources that lay visitors would not usually be welcome in the main cloister or in the spaces opening from it. Separate courtyards are provided for them. In other words, the St. Gall Plan promotes communal

Developed monastic communities in the West The largest and most powerful monastery in medieval Western Europe was probably Cluny, a Benedictine abbey with a layout incorporating many of the basic elements of the St. Gall plan. Much of the complex was destroyed during the French Revolution. Many people have conducted

This discussion arises out of analyses similar to those Nicola Aravecchia publishes. In addition to his bibliography, see Bartlett School 2000; Brenningmeyer 2000; Gilchrist 1994; and Robinson cl 994. 2

7

INTRODUCTION excavations at this site at different times, but the most prolonged and productive effort was that of Conant (Conant 1968, Stratford 1992, Walsh 1990). He was interested in the whole complex, but was unable to devote much time to excavating outside the church. For his abbey plans he depended heavily on study of standing structures, on old drawings and prints, and on literary sources. One of his achievements was to record carefully the discovery of large amounts of architectural sculpture. This documentation has enabled Neil Stratford and David Walsh to assemble a corpus of that material for publication. In his essay for this volume, David Walsh makes use of the sculpture to establish connections between the monastery and the town that grew up outside its walls. Looking at the town of Cluny in the Romanesque Period, mainly the twelfth century, he shows its close links to the Abbey, which was responsible, either directly or indirectly, for much of the urban development. Construction in the town both establishes an urban identity, and proclaims it to be an extension of the Abbey's powerful image.

competently. Today many previously accepted generalizations about women's monasticism are under attack from a variety of points of view. Constance Berman summarizes revised views on enclosure (staying within the monastery compound), economic independence, and numbers. She stresses the vital link between lay people and monasteries established by patronage on the one side and prayer on the other. She alludes to the service women's monasteries may have given their humbler neighbors in practical charity, but can most fully document their service to the rich burghers, nobles, and royalty who gave donations in return for prayers. She suggests we think of their churches as "work spaces," where they performed the service outsiders valued most. Finally she tests accusations of improvidence by bringing together archaeological and documentary evidence to show how much space nuns in specific convents had. In the final essay on Western Europe, Walter Simons looks at a new type of religious structure that arose around 1200 specifically for women: the beguinages. Simons shows why radical differences from nunneries, notably flexibility and openness to poor candidates, made beguinages immensely popular among women, and bitterly attacked (as well as defended) by authorities.

Walsh then turns to consider aspects of the Cistercian Abbey of Bordesley in England. The Cistercian order arose in protest to the grandeur of Cluny and monasteries following its example. In the same years (1088-1130) when the great third church of Cluny was rising, reformers were criticizing its grandeur and ceremony. They thought strict observance of Benedict's rule demanded greater simplicity. Gradually they established a separate set of observances and customs, emphasizing the combination of manual labor and prayer. Their reform spread, leading to many new foundations, including Bordesley in l 138.

This development, fascinating in itself, also challenges the way we view history. It tests our concept of a "mainstream." Scholars had once inferred that women's monasticism declined in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, partly because the major monastic reform movements of the time, the Cistercian and the Franciscan, were predominantly male: Venarde has demonstrated that nunneries were in fact on the rise, outside that supposed mainstream (Venarde 1997). At the end of those centuries came the striking new development of beguinages created by and for women. Still somehow viewed as peripheral, this movement could attract more dedicated individuals into one place (1500 to 1900 at the largest site, see Simons this volume) than any monastic venture since those of early Egypt.

The excavations at Bordesley are frequently cited as models for both the elegance of their research design, and the excellence of technique. An interdisciplinary group from several universities has worked on the site for over thirty years. They have not tried to clear the whole, but have excavated carefully selected areas: the church, the industrial complex, and others. Walsh focuses on the shaping and usage of the precinct, i.e., the area between the enclosure walls and the church-cloister nucleus. The monks showed notable energy and skill in shaping a difficult natural environment, and that activity led to connections with various external groups. The Abbey's industrial production served not only itself, but outsiders, perhaps knightly clients. The gatehouse chapel may have attracted patronage from the town that grew up outside the walls. It may have functioned as a point of intersection between the monks and the laity. Later, as the Abbey's numbers and prosperity declined, the monks abandoned much of the precinct, and apparently re-centered their life deliberately within the smaller church-cloister nucleus.

Beguinages also test definitions of monasticism. In the terminology of the Middle Ages and the present day, these are plainly not monasteries. Their inhabitants, beguines, are not "religious" in the full legal sense. The features of beguine lives that disqualify them from that appellation, however, are ones they share with many early Egyptian monks. Like them, the beguines worked to support themselves, owned private property, and could leave the community at will. (In the Egyptian milieu, the last possibility was probably not so much a right as a failing, but stories indicate that monks decided to leave, and sometimes to return, without much ado.) In many cases, the life style of beguines could resemble the activities Snively discusses. Small groups lived in private houses attested by documents but leaving no characteristic material remains. Others however gathered in very large groups in "court beguinages" where housing, a church, and other facilities stood around a great open court.

Women in the religious life: Western examples

The developments discussed so far have been spearheaded by men. Until recently, monastic archaeology focused on men's establishments. Scholars tended to think that women's monasticism lagged far behind because women's establishments could not support or govern themselves 8

SHAPING COMMUNITY Simons laments the lack of either preservation or study of these striking architectural assemblages. He combines documentary evidence, old prints, and drawings with surviving architecture to reconstruct the living conditions. He also uses the paintings in the few surviving beguine churches to argue for a specific women's spirituality.

observation of standing remains and on older images. Snively indicates the significance of not finding monastic buildings. Only Bolman and Magness rely on a congruity between material and written evidence to make their arguments. Aravecchia, Soderberg, and Walsh (discussing the dating of construction at Cluny) all note how excavated material fills in gaps in the documents.

Developed monastic communities in the East.

Most of the papers use spatial layouts as a primary source of information, supplemented by architectural sculpture in Walsh's two papers and to lesser degree in Berman's. Painting dominates Bolman's argument and plays a small but significant part in Simons'. Rockcastle points to other aspects of layout, elevation, and decoration that might be considered by historians as well as modem critics and practioners. Animal bones play a decisive role in Magness' interpretation of the use of Qumran, and Soderberg's of Clonmacnoise. He discusses the origin of the animals, and she is interested in their ultimate disposition. Other significant information comes from pottery at Qumran and metal goods, notably sword pommels, at Bordesley. Snively's main evidence consists of gravestones.

Svetlana Popovic discusses developments during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in the Balkans,3 roughly contemporary with the full blossoming of the beguine movement outlined in Simon's paper. She focuses on the monastery as a fully developed, self-contained, total unit. By the time of which she is writing, monastic communities in the Balkans have decided on their need for certain buildings in a specific configuration, and that decision is accepted over a wide area. She shows us the loose regional community to which individual monastic establishments belong, creating great similarity in their plans without giving rise to anything like the Western orders. Then she shows how response to change tends to work differently in different parts of that community, as they face differing situations. She speaks of the internal pressure generated by a new spiritual ideal, hesychasm, and of the external pressures of war and conquest.

Discussing Qumran and the Kellia, Magness and Aravecchia focus on internal communal relationships as deduced from plans and from other finds that can be positioned in those plans. Simons, in discussing beguinages, is interested in both their internal and external relationships, as is Walsh in discussing Bordesley's precinct, and Hadjiantoniou in discussing Vatopedi. Walsh discussing Cluny, Hadjiantoniou discussing Karyes, Berman and Popovic all stress external relationships.

Phaidon Hadjiantoniou, in two articles, illustrates vividly the varying meanings of context or community in the monastic life. Although he discusses the plan of a monastery on Mt. Athos, Vatopedi, and of a skete, he emphasizes the larger networks in which these units function. One paper is centripetal, and one centrifugal. One talks about the way separate monasteries on Mt. Athos have joined together in a common government requiring a capital city, Karyes. The other shows how Vatopedi is both a conventional walled community of the kind Popovic describes, and the center for several kinds of relationships that fluctuate through time and space. His papers bring us up to the present day, illustrating the continual processes of change, and the continuing challenges of honoring tradition and innovation.

Internal communal activities traced in these papers mainly involve prayer, eating, and, to a lesser degree, work, medical care, and common defense. External relationships involve obtaining and distributing goods, and somehow disseminating sculptural and architectural forms. The services of hospitality and teaching are mentioned only at the Kellia and the Beguinages. Tollefson's presentation made a stimulating contribution here. He brought out the importance of hospitality in modem monasteries, leading to problems with parking lots, reception areas, etc. that have interesting similarities with and differences from provisions for visitors made in earlier complexes. Berman argues for nuns' interest in practical charity, but also reminds us that their greatest service to the laity would be their prayer. Bolman also emphasizes the importance of prayer as a linking device, but reminds us that the link monastic dwellers most sought was not to this world.

Summary

These scholars make use of a wide range of evidence. Only two or three rely strongly on results of large-scale excavations that give an overall view of a site: Magness discussing Qumran, Aravecchia discussing the Kellia, and Walsh discussing Bordesley. Two draw on more specifically focused excavations: Walsh looks at material from work at Cluny that used methods we would not approve today, and Soderberg looks at material from a limited but technically proficient excavation at Clonmacnoise. Hadjiantoniou, Popovic, Berman and Simons all show what can be learned about structures without excavation, relying on close

Many papers consider relationships to cities. The heavenly Jerusalem loomed large in the thinking of many monks and nuns but their attitudes to worldly cities varied (cf. Magness on Qumran, this volume, esp. final paragraph). Egyptian monks and nuns left existing cities, but aimed to create spiritual ones: contemporary writers called the great Egyptian desert conglomerations cities. Soderberg considers that monastic communities formed Ireland's first cities, and during the final panel discussion he emphasized that these settlements were by no means limited to people who had taken formal monastic vows.

3 This exhibition and symposium looked at a geographically restricted range of developments in eastern monasticism. For a sound popular account of both history and present practice in some other parts of the Eastern world, see Dalrymple 1997.

9

INTRODUCTION Later, in both East and West, monasteries could be founded in cities or in the country, but the country monasteries have of course been more open to archaeological investigation. Popovic is the only author here who specifically addresses differences in siting: country and city do not, she says call for different plans. Remote sites suit hesychast ideals (as they also suited some early Egyptian hermits and Irish monks, or, later and for somewhat different reasons, Cistercians). Security varies: interestingly, Popovic's data seem to show that in times of ongoing conflict city monasteries are safer, but if an unsympathetic authority is established country monasteries may maintain greater independence.

extending across the Balkans in the later Middle Ages until it was broken up by external events. The more formal networks called "orders" that developed in the West (Benedictine, Cistercian, Fransciscan, etc., Knowles 1966) are not discussed in any of these papers. Hadjiantoniou's discussion of Vatopedi gives us the broadest picture of a single community's relationships, beginning with a precinct, then a settlement outside the gates, then the separate dependencies on the peninsula, and finally the great estates far afield. Western monasteries would typically have the settlement and the estates-see for example Walsh, Cluny, this volume, final paragraph-but not the eremitic and semieremitic dependencies.

Walsh talks about the towns that grew up outside abbeys, and shows the different possible relationships. In one case an abbey might dominate a town; in another, a town might reach out to share in a peripheral part of the monastic architecture. The Abbey of Cluny may have seen its town as an extension of its own identity, to be shaped and influenced, but at Bordesley townspeople apparently laid some claim to the gatehouse chapel, paying for its decoration. In contrast, beguinages sought to be discrete worlds within cities; some of the women Snively mentions may also have done so. On Mt. Athos, relationships between monasteries called a unique city into being.

The inexhaustible possibilities that arise in discussing the meanings of monastic community become clear if we contrast Hadjiantoniou's paper on Vatopedi with Bolman's on Bawit. Hadjiantoniou shows how the walled enclosure of Vatopedi constitutes a starting point for layers of lessening relationships: inside, close and many-faceted; becoming more limited as they become more distant geographically. For Bolman, a single cell can sustain an intimate relationship with the Community of Saints, both endless and intimate. DEPARTMENTS OF ART HISTORY AND CLASSICAL AND NEAR EASTERN STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55455 [email protected]

Hadjiantoniou discusses the specific network of monasteries formed on Mt. Athos, and Popovic the much broader one

10

SHAPING COMMUNITY

BIBLIOGRAPHY Bartlett Schoool. 2000. Space Syntax. Web page of the British School of Architecture and Planning, University College, London. www. bartlett. ucl. ac.uk/spacesyntax. Brenningmeyer, Todd. 2000. A Method for Analyzing Extant Architectural Remains Using Space Syntax and GIS Techniques. M.G.I.S. thesis, University of Minnestota. Burridge, Peter. 1976. The Development of Monastic Architecture on Mt. Athos. Ph.D. diss. York University (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1986). Conant, Kenneth J. 1968. Cluny: Les eglises et la maison du chef-d' ordre. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Dalrymple, William. 1997. From the Holy Mountain: A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium. London: HarperCollins. Forsyth, George H. and Kurt Weitzman. 1973. The Monastery of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai: The Church and Fortress of Justinian. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press. Foundas, Pandelis cl 992. The Architecture of the Athonite Kellia. In Mount Athas, Ploutarchos Theocharides et al. Athens: Melissa. Fry, Timothy et al. eds. 1981. The Rule of St. Benedict in English and Latin. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press. Gilchrist, Roberta. 1994. Gender and Material Culture: The Archaeology of Religious Women. New York: Routledge. Horn, Walter and Ernest Born. 1979. The Plan of St. Gall. Berkeley: University of California Press. Horn, Walter et al. c1990. The Forgotten Hermitage of Skellig Michael. Berkeley: University of California Press. Jacobson, Werner. 1992. Der Klosterplan van St. Gallen und die karolingische Architektur. Berlin: Verlag for Kunstwissenschaft. Judge, E.A. 1977. The Earliest Use of Monachos for "Monk" and the Origins of Monasticism. Jahrbuch fur Antike und Christentum 20: 72-89. Knowles, David. 1966. From Pachomius to Ignatius: A Study of the Constitutional History of the Religious Orders. Oxford: Clarendon. Morison, E.F. 1912. St. Basil and His Rule. London: Frowde. Morris, Rosemary. 1996. The Origins of Athos. In Mount Athas and Byzantine Monasticism: Papers from the

Twenty-eighth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Birmingham, March 1994, eds. Anthony Bryer and Mary Cunningham. Aldershot: Variorum. Murray, Robert. 1975. Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition. London and New York: Cambridge University Press. Patrich, Joseph. c1995. Sabas, Leader of Palestinian Monasticism: A Comparative Study in Eastern Monasticism, Fourth to Seventh Centuries. Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks. Price, Lorna. 1982. The Plan of St. Gall in Brief. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ramsay. Boniface, trans. cl997. John Cassian: The Conferences. New York: Paulist Press. Robinson, Julia. cl994. Messages from Space: Privacy and Power in Housing. In Power by Design, eds. Roberta M. Feldman, Graeme Hardie, David G. Saile. Oklahoma City: Edra Russell, Norman, trans. 1981. The Lives of the Desert Fathers: The Historia Monachorum in Aegyptos. Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications. Stratford, Neil. 1992. Les batiments de l'abbaye de Cluny a l'epoque medievale. Bulletin Monumental 150: 383-411. Talbot, Alice-Mary. 1998. Women's Space in Byzantine Monasteries. Dumbarton Oaks Papers 52. Theocharides, Ploutarchos. c 1992. Introduction to the Architecture of Mount Athos. In Mount Athas. Ploutarchos Theocharides et al. Athens: Melissa. Theocharides, Ploutarchos. 1996. Recent Research into Athonite Monastic Architecture Tenth-Sixteenth Centuries. In Mount Athas and Byzantine Monasticism: Papers from the Twenty-eighth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Birmingham, March 1994, eds. Anthony Bryer and Mary Cunningham. Aldershot: Variorum. Venarde, Bruce L. 1997. Women's Monasticism and Medieval Society: Nunneries in France and England, 890-1215. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Walsh, David. 1990. The Excavations of Cluny III by K. J. Conant. Le gouvernement d' Hugues de Semur a Cluny. Actes du colloque scientifique internationale, Cluny, Septembre 1988. Cluny: Musee Ochier. Ward, Benedicta. 1975a. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications. Ward, Benedicta. 1975b. The Wisdom of the Desert Fathers. Oxford: S.L.G. Press.

11

INTRODUCTION

FIGURES Fig. 1. Plan of St. Catherine's in the Sinai, after Forsythe's plan of the twentieth century monastery, altered to reflect his suppositions about the earlier layout. Mack Conachen after Forsythe and Weitzman 1973. (North is at the top.)

Fig. 2. Plan of Great Lavra, Mack Conachen after Burridge 1976. (North is at the top.) Fig. 3. Plan of St. Gall. Todd Brenningmeyer and Michael Nelson after Home 1979. (East is at the top.) Fig. 4. Plan of Cluny III. Mack Conachen after Conant 1968. (East is at the top.).

12

SHAPING COMMUNITY

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13

INTRODUCTION

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14

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Ancient Jewish asceticism and the Essenes

carried out in the "scriptorium" (see Magness 1998b: 52).

The notion that the sectarian group at Qumran was a monastic order originated with the initial discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. 1 It was first raised not by Roland de Vaux and his associates at the Dominican Ecole Biblique et Archeologique Fran1,aise de Jerusalem, but by scholars from the American School of Oriental Research (now the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research) in Jerusalem. They included William Brownlee, John Trever, and Millar Burrows, the director of the School at that time. After the American scholars examined some of the scrolls from Cave l at Qumran (which had been purchased by Athanasius Yeshua Samuel, a Syrian metropolitan associated with St. Mark's Church in Jerusalem), the American School office in New Haven released a statement that was published in The Times of London on April 12, 1948. It reported that the scholars had examined four "ancient Hebrew scrolls," including one that "seemed to be a manual of discipline of some comparatively little-known sect or monastic order, the Essenes" (VanderKam 1994: 3-6). 2 This statement contains the first reference to this sect as a "monastic order," and suggests an identification of the group with the Essenes mentioned in ancient sources ( an identification that had already been proposed by Eleazar Lippa Sukenik; see VanderKam 1994: 6, 71; Goranson 1998: 534, n. 1).

The debate about whether Qumran can be accurately described as some sort of "monastic community" is not, however, simply a semantic one. The underlying question is whether there is any connection between the beliefs, practices, and lifestyle of the group at Qumran and early Christian monasticism. 3 As scholars have noted, we cannot establish a direct connection between the Essenes and early Christian monasticism based on the available archaeological and historical evidence. The biggest obstacle is a chronological gap, as the Essenes all but disappear from our sources after the end of the First Jewish Revolt against the Romans in 70 C.E.,4 while the earliest evidence for Christian monasticism in Egypt dates to the third and fourth centuries. Nevertheless, many scholars believe that the roots of Christian monasticism should be sought in ancient Jewish ascetic movements such as the Essenes, the Therapeutae (who lived in Egypt), and the Nazirites (Hirschfeld 1998: 1).5 As we shall see, there may be a connection between the asceticism of the Essenes and that of early Syrian Christianity. Steven D. Fraade (1987) has provided a useful survey of the concept of asceticism in ancient Judaism. He suggested that asceticism be viewed as a response to an inherent tension in religious systems, as humans aspire to attain an ideal of spiritual perfection while confronted by the obstacles of a worldly existence (Fraade 1987: 253-55). The ascetic responses to these tensions, which assumed a variety of social shapes and were motivated by different religious ideals, can be divided into three categories: (1) fellowship or communion with the transcendent order (that is, God); (2) disciplined, correct (moral/righteous) behavior; and (3) reparation of ruptures in the individual's or community's fellowship with God caused by failures to behave correctly (Fraade 1987: 256). For the ancients, asceticism includes the exercise of disciplined effort toward the goal of spiritual perfection, which requires abstention from the satisfaction of earthly desires (Fraade 1987: 257).

De Vaux was cautious in his interpretation of the archaeological remains at Qumran: "The archaeological evidence suggests to us that this group was a religious community. It was organized, disciplined, and observed special rites" (de Vaux 1973: 110). However, his use of terms loaded with monastic overtones-such as "scriptorium" and "refectory" (see for example de Vaux 1973: 29-30)-has led some scholars to accuse him of bias in interpreting the archaeology of Qumran. De Vaux was as much a product of his background as anyone, but these accusations have obscured the fact that his identifications of these rooms are generally correct: the "refectory" is a dining room (see below), and some sort of activity connected with the preparation or writing of scrolls appears to have been

Fraade noted that the Essenes incorporated many ascetic practices into their communal way of life, including celibacy (for at least a major segment of the movement), a materially

1

I am grateful to Hanan Eshel, Magen Broshi, and Stephen Goranson for their comments on this paper. I assume sole responsibility for its contents. I would also like to thank the British Academy for their kind permission to reproduce the illustrations in figures 1-4, which were published in de Vaux 1973. 2 The "Manual of Discipline" (now generally referred to as the Community Rule) received its name because it reminded Burrows of a Methodist "Discipline" (VanderKam 1994: 5). For another review of the initial discovery of the scrolls, see Schiffman 1994: 311.

I accept the identification of Qumran as a Jewish sectarian settlement, as well as the identification of the sect that lived at the site and deposited the Dead Sea Scrolls in the caves with the Essenes mentioned in ancient sources. 4 For later sources on the Essenes, see Cansdale 1997: 24, 31-33. 5 For the possible relationship between the Essenes and the Therapeutae, see the references in Bilde 1998: 165, n. 28. 3

15

COMMUNAL MEALS AND SCARED SPACE simple life free of private possessions, temperance in food and drink, avoidance of oil, simplicity of dress, reserve in speech, desert separatism (at Qumran), and strict rules of purity and of Sabbath observance (Fraade 1987: 266). The Essenes apparently originated in a group that split from the priesthood in Jerusalem (Fraade 1987: 267; see also Schiffman 1983: 215; for a dissenting opinion see Kugler 1998: 114). They believed that the Jerusalem Temple had come under the rule of evil forces that negated its role as the atoning medium for Israel. The Essenes viewed themselves as a spiritual Temple, living in the last days of the present age. They awaited a final war between themselves ("the sons of light") and the forces of darkness, in which the latter would be destroyed. At the end of the war, the true Temple in Jerusalem would be restored. In the meantime, the group at Qumran, at least, lived in isolation in the desert, as a hierarchically organized community led by priests (Fraade 1987: 267; Schiffman 1983: 215; Naude 1998: 186-87).

physical reinstitution of the Temple cult (for a cautionary note, see Kugler 1998: 112). Since early Christian monks envisaged a spiritual Temple rather than a physical one, they were not concerned with the ritual purity required for a sacrificial Temple cult. Thus, in Christianity, baptism is a one-time event for spiritual cleansing from sin, whereas Judaism requires repeated immersion in miqva' ot (places for ritual bathing: sg, miqveh). 7 In fact, the Essenes defined themselves on the basis of ritual purity. This is because they viewed their community as a spiritual Temple, seeking to achieve the purity and sanctification of the cult through the medium of sectarian life and observance (Schiffman 1983: 215). 8 They saw themselves as a replacement for the Temple, where the divine presence would dwell until the eschaton, when God would bring a New Temple (Bokser 1985: 284). Because it was necessary to create by means of the sect a substitute for the sacrificial cult, entrance was limited to those who were ritually pure. Members who transgressed were dealt with as temporarily or permanently impure. Since the eschaton was to be celebrated in absolute purity, the purity of the sect had to be maintained. The insistence on purification in this world was a preparation for the age to come (Schiffman 1983: 216).

The features that distinguish the Essenes from other Jewish ascetics include their communal focus (with an emphasis on the ya had) and the celibacy of some at least. Robert Murray (1974/75) has pointed to a possible connection between Essene celibacy and that of the early Syriac qyama or "Covenant." This interpretation suggests an Essene background to early Syrian asceticism, an extreme form of asceticism that developed in the late second century (Murray 1974/75: 59, 80; for Syrian asceticism, see Brown 1989: 103-52).

The communal meals of the Essenes

The Essenes envisaged future, eschatological meals over which a priestly messiah and a messiah of Israel would preside. These messianic banquets are described in the Messianic Rule (also called the Rule of the Congregation, Hebrew serekh ha'edah) (lQSa 2:11-22; see Vermes 1998: 159-60; Schiffman 1994: 333; Bilde 1998: 153). In addition, other evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls and the testimony of Flavius Josephus indicate that the Essenes regularly conducted real banquets or communal meals similar to the future messianic banquets. 9

The communal and hierarchical organization and evidence for celibacy, as well as the desert separatism (at least at Qumran) and relinquishing of personal possessions, make the Essenes resemble early Christian monastic groups more closely than other Jewish movements in Roman Judea. As the Syrian evidence demonstrates, some indirect but concrete connections could account for these similarities. There are also, however, significant differences. For example, whereas Essene celibacy was apparently not universal,6 by the fourth century, celibacy had become a hallmark of Christian monasticism (for celibacy in early Egyptian monasticism, see Brown 1988: 213-35). More important, the Essenes' exclusion of women from aspects of the community's life reflects a concern with ritual purity that is uniquely Jewish-that is, purity obtained by doing or refraining from physical acts such as consuming ritually pure food and drink, repeated ritual immersion, and limiting contact with those considered ritually unclean, including corpses, women, and the diseased.

The nature of these communal meals is disputed. Lawrence H. Schiffman, for example, believes that they were eschatalogical in nature. Sinners were excluded, as they would be from the banquet and community of the future age (Schiffman 1983: 216). This reflects the group's expectation that it lived in the eschaton; the present banquets represented a sort of preparation for the messianic banquets. According But see Baumgarten 1998: 210: "In Jewish thought repentance tends to be viewed, like cleansing, as a perennial process." And on p. 211: "Far from being merely external acts for the removal of ritual uncleanliness, these purifications were viewed as the means by which the holy spirit restores the corporate purity of Israel." Baumgarten 1992: 209, notes that in contrast to the Essenes, Rabbinic tradition tended to treat ritual impurity as a morally neutral phenomenon. 8 In an email communication of 2 April 2000, Stephen Goranson pointed out to me that 4Q174 (Florilegium or Midrash on the Last Days), 1:5-6 describes the community as "a Sanctuary of Men ...that there they may send up, like the smoke of incense, the works of the Law" (see Vermes 1998: 493). 9 The relevant passage fromlQS [the Community Rulej and Josephus's testimony are discussed below: also see Hempel 1998: 84-85; Bilde 1998: 153. 7

In contrast, Christian monasticism emphasizes spiritual purity, or purity from sin, obtained, for example, by being baptized and by rejecting the pleasures of this world, including women. In ancient Judaism, sexual abstinence was required of priests and laymen participating in the Temple services. Thus, it is not surprising to find celibacy practiced by at least some members of a group that viewed itself as a spiritual Temple, but which lived in daily preparation for the According to Fraade 1987: 268, celibacy among the Essenes might not have been permanent, either. For discussions of the status of women among the Essenes and in the Dead Sea Scrolls, see Schiffman 1992: Schiffman 1994: 127-43: Schuller 1994. 6

16

SHAPING COMMUNITY to Schiffman, although the communal meals at Qumran had clear messianic overtones, they were not sacral meals. This means that the group did not view these meals as a substitute for the Temple sacrifices and by way of extension, there is no analogy between these meals and the Christian Eucharist (Schiffman 1983: 191-200; Schiffman 1994: 333-37; Schiffman 1980; van der Ploeg 1957; for other references see Hempel 1998: 85)

occasion for libations, sacral meals, chanting of hymns, and celebrating festivals. A fixed seating order was a feature of the communal meals and other assemblies of these guilds (Weinfeld 1986: 28-29; also see Delcor 1968: 410-12). According to the Community Rule, communal meals were held with at least ten members present, arranged by rank and presided over by a priest: "And when [the table has been prepared for eating or the n]ew wine [for drinking, the] priest shall [be first to stretch out his hand to bless the firstfruit of the bread] and of the wine" (Community Rule [lQS] 6:4-6, from Vermes 1998: 120; also see Bilde 1998: 153). As Schiffman has noted, the reference to bread and wine is symbolic of a meal that included food and drink, since bread was a staple (Schiffman 1983: 192; Delcor 1968: 413). 13 It also reflects the practice of blessing wine and bread in particular. The consumption of a non-alcoholic "new wine" (Hebrew tirosh) at these meals also parallels the sacrificial ceremonies conducted in the Jerusalem Temple, for which the priests were required to remain sober (Delcor 1968: 407). The priest (or in the case of the future banquets, the messiah) offered blessings and prayers before the meal. 14

Many scholars, however, believe that the communal meals of the Essenes were sacral or religious in nature. Hartmut Stegemann, for example, describes them as common ritual meals that were modeled after the ritual meals held in the Temple on the occasion of the pilgrimage festivals. The restrictions on participation in the communal meals of the Essenes correspond with the Torah's stipulation that only Israelite men ages 20 and up, who were free of physical handicaps and were in a state of ritual purity, could take part in the ritual meals in the Temple (Stegemann 1998: 191-92). Thus, the communal meals might have been considered substitutes for the Temple sacrifices, in which the Essenes did not participate (Yadin 1962: 200-201; also see Schiffman 1980: 46, 52; Bilde 1998: 161; Delcor 1968: 403).

According to the initiation process of the sect, new members were admitted to the communal meals in stages. At first, they were allowed to partake only of the pure food of the sect, which was considered less susceptible to defilement than liquids. Only in a more advanced stage of initiation could they partake of the pure drink of the sect (see van der Ploeg 1957: 171; Delcor 1968). These restrictions were necessary to maintain the absolute purity of these meals. As Per Bilde has noted, "participation in the common meal is the primary expression of full membership in the community" (Bilde 1968: 153).

Mathias Delcor noted that the communal meals are characterized by the same acts required of or performed by priests in the Jerusalem Temple, including the pronouncement of blessings, the wearing of white robes, and immersion in miqva' ot prior to the meals (or, in the case of the Temple, before the sacrifices). Priests seem to have been responsible for preparing the food and drink for the communal meals, just as they were for preparing the sacrifices in the Temple. In fact, Josephus explicitly compared the communal dining room of the Essenes to "a certain holy temple." 10

Josephus's relatively detailed account of the communal meals of the Essenes complements and supplements the information provided in the scrolls:

According to James C. VanderKam, the messianic character and explicit eschatological associations of these meals, as well as the prominence of bread and wine and the fact that they were repeated regularly, recall elements found in the New Testament descriptions of the Lord's Supper (VanderKam 1994: 175). 11 Stegemann (1998: 259-60) believes that the meals were ritual, but not sacramental like the Eucharist. 12 Moshe Weinfeld has noted the connection or overlap between the communal meals of the Essenes on the one hand, and their assemblies or sessions on the other. In this regard the sect resembles other guilds in the GrecoRoman world, where the banquet (symposium) was an

they then bathe their bodies in cold water. And after this purification is over, they every one meet together in an apartment of their own, into which it is not permitted to any of another sect to enter; while they go, after a pure manner, into the dining room, as into a certain holy temple, and quietly set themselves down; upon which the baker lays them loaves in order; the cook also brings a single plate of one sort of food, and sets it before every one of them; but a priest says grace before meat; and it is unlawful

Delcor 1968: 406-8; van der Ploeg 1957: 163, 167, 169; Bilde 1968 also emphasizes the priestly role in the communal meals. For the relevant passage in Josephus, see below. 11 For a detailed discussion see Kuhn 1957. For communal meals among the Pharisees and the early Christians, see Weinfeld 1986: 49; Alon 1957: 288. Also see Bokser 1985: 284: "while other Second Temple groups like the Pharisees also stressed the importance of purity, requiring the eating of common food in a state of ritual purity, the Qumranites are the ones who established an elaborate community to act on these notions .... " 12 The definition of such terms as "ritual," "sacred"/"sacral," "cultic," "sacrificial," and "sacramental" is fundamental to this debate and has been discussed by many of the authors cited here. I follow the majority of scholars in using the terms ritual or sacred/sacral to describe the communal meals. • 10

The order of blessing the bread first and then the wine (in this passage of 1QS) follows Genesis 14: 18 (the blessing of Melkizedek), though in Jewish tradition today this order is reversed. In the synoptic Gospels' account of Jesus's last supper, the bread is blessed first and then the wine (for a discussion see Kuhn 1957: 73, 260 n. 25). I thank Hanan Eshel for bringing this to my attention. 14 Some scholars have noted that according to the scrolls, the priest (or messiah) made a blessing only at the beginning of the meal, whereas Josephus refers to blessings at the beginning and end of the meal (Delcor 1968: 413; Kuhn 1957: 70-72; for the relevant passage of Josephus see below). 13

17

COMMUNAL MEALS AND SCARED SPACE for any one to taste of the food before grace be said. The same priest when he hath dined, says grace again after meat...(Wars 11.129-31).15

words, the inhabitants produced their own pottery to ensure its ritual purity. This is why the ceramic corpus from Qumran consists largely of the same, undecorated types of cups, bowls, and plates used for dining, which appear to have been manufactured at the site (Broshi 1998: 24-25; Magness 1994). In fact, a store of over 1000 dishes, lying neatly stacked but broken where they had fallen on the ground was discovered in L86-89 (the "pantry," see fig. 2).

The following quote from Johannes van der Ploeg highlights the similarities between the communal meals of the Essenes and those of Christian monks: It is quite natural that the Essenes, whom Josephus describes as working on the land during the morning hours, took off the clothes in which they had laboured, washed themselves before their meals, took other clothes, to put them off when they returned to the land, after leaving the refectory. In modern Christian monasteries of our time, especially those in warm countries, exactly the same is done: the monks have clothes in which they work in the field, in the monastery, etc., and special, better and cleaner ones, in which they appear in the church and in the refectory. Before and after the meal, the monks and other religious of various orders are accustomed to sing and to pray; a priest pronounces the blessing over the simple food, which nobody may touch before the blessing has been given. During the meal it is not permitted to anyone to speak. In this, everything is the same as in the description of Josephus (van der Ploeg 1957: 168).

Nearly all of these vessels represent dishes used for dining, such as plates, cups, and bowls. They included 279 shallow, carinated bowls with flaring rims (de Vaux 1956: figs. 2:67), 798 hemispherical cups (de Vaux 1956: figs. 2:3, 11, 12), and 150 deep cups with thin walls and flaring rims (and one example of a similar but carinated cup; de Vaux 1956: Fig. 2:4, 8, 9). There were also thirty-seven large, deep bowls or kraters that could have been used for mixing wine and water or for serving food (de Vaux 1956: fig. 2:2), eleven table jugs for pouring wine (de Vaux 1956: fig. 2:1), and eight large jars for storing food or drink (de Vaux 1956: fig. 2: 10). In other words, this assemblage represents a complete table service (as noted by de Vaux 1973: 12). The absence of cooking pots indicates that the food was cooked elsewhere in the settlement. The large number and uniformity of the dishes accords with Josephus's testimony that each member received an individual plate with a serving of food, in contrast to the usual custom of sharing common dishes: "the cook sets before each one [a] plate with a single course" (Wars II.130; Thackeray 1956: 369). In ancient Palestine, light meals typically consisted of bread dipped into a vinegar-based wine, while the main meal was usually a lentil or vegetable stew served in a large bowl and sopped up with bread (see King 1998: 56-57, 60). Josephus's account and the large number of individual cups, bowls, and plates at Qumran suggest that the inhabitants did not follow the usual custom of eating out of common dishes. This practice undoubtedly reflects their unique concerns regarding ritual purity. The morphology of these vessels confirms de Vaux' s suggestion that they were broken as a result of the earthquake of 31 B.C.E., meaning that they belong to the pre-31 phase of Period lb (see Magness 1998a; Magness 1998b: 59).

Van der Ploeg noted, however, that in contrast to Christian monks' practice, the immersion required before communal meals reflects a uniquely Essene concern with ritual purity (van der Ploeg 1957: 168). 16 Other requirements, including pure food and drink (and presumably, ritually pure dishes), reflect this same concern. Thus, as in the case of celibacy, although there are striking similarities between Essene and Christian monastic practices (and perhaps some concrete connections), there are also fundamental differences.

Archaeological evidence for communal meals at Qumran

The corpus of ceramic vessels from Qumran provides one type of archaeological evidence for communal meals. As Magen Broshi has noted, the presence of a potters' workshop with two kilns throughout the existence of this small settlement reflects a concern with ritual purity. In other

Because L86-89 opened onto the largest room in the settlement (L77), de Vaux concluded that the latter served as a communal dining room and assembly hall (de Vaux 1973: 12, 111). He noted that the inhabitants deposited what appear to be the remains of religious or ritual meals in the spaces around the outside of the buildings at Qumran. These deposits consisted of animal bones that were placed between large potsherds or inside jars, either flush with or on top of the ancient ground level (see fig. 3). They were covered with little or no earth (de Vaux 1973: 12-13). Analyses have indicated that the bones belonged to adult sheep and goats, lambs or kids, calves, and cows or oxen. No single deposit contained the complete skeleton of any animal. Instead, the bones had been taken apart, and the flesh was no longer attached to them when they were collected. De Vaux noted that the bones must be the remains of meals, since all were clean but some were charred, indicating that the meat was boiled or roasted (de Vaux 1973: 14).

15 I prefer Whiston's translation of this passage (Whiston 1984: 476) over Thackeray's (1956: 373). As Bilde (1998: 165, n. 34) noted, the Greek term trophe refers to food or meal, not meat. Philo Judaeus (Every Good Man is Free, 86) also describes the Essenes as eating communal meals consisting of the same, simple food; see van der Ploeg 1957: 166-167. Bilde provides a useful review of the information on communal meals provided in the scrolls and by Josephus and Philo, and concludes that, "Josephus agrees with the Dead Sea Scrolls" (Bilde 1968: 160). 16 For references in the scrolls to ritual bathing before these meals, see Hempel 1998: 85; Delcor 1968: 406; VanderKam 1994, 85: "One sentence in the Manual of Discipline connects bathing and the pure meal of the group ... "; also see Baumgarten 1992: 203-6, for the requirement of ritual immersion before individual meals.

18

SHAPING COMMUNITY I agree with de Vaux and the majority of scholars who believe that these remains do not represent the victims of ritual sacrifice. This is because no archaeological remains of an altar at Qumran have appeared (against Humbert 1994: 199-203), and neither the scrolls nor our ancient sources provide any indication that this community conducted animal sacrifices outside the Jerusalem Temple. 17 Since meat would have been consumed rarely, 18 it is reasonable to assume that these bones represent the remains of sacral or ritual meals that were nonsacrificial. 19

According to Schiffman, this passage indicates that the authors of the document were displeased that dogs were allowed in Jerusalem, because they might scavenge the bones of sacrificed animals. Since bones are described as a source of ritual defilement elsewhere in the text, he has suggested that the sectarians at Qumran buried the bones to prevent dogs or other animals from scattering them throughout the settlement and potentially defiling the members (Schiffman 1994: 338; similarly, van der Ploeg 1957: 173, suggested that perhaps the Essenes extended the rule regarding the impurity of human bones to animal bones, and therefore buried the bones in jars on the ground: "A man digging in the ground would be prevented by the jars from touching the bones").

Schiffman has noted that the fragmentary scroll known as 4QMMT (Hebrew Miqsat Ma'aseh Ha-Torah) may shed light on the animal bone deposits. The relevant passage states:

Schiffman's suggestion raises two obvious questions. First, if the bones were considered a source of potential defilement, why did the community keep them in the area of the settlement? After all, they lived in the midst of a wilderness, not in an urban center, and could easily have discarded the bones elsewhere (such as throwing them over the edge of the cliff into the Wadi Qumran). Second, if the community wanted to keep the bones for ritual reasons but considered them a potential source of defilement, why did they not bury them in deep pits (like the bothroi that van der Ploeg mentions) that would have been inaccessible to dogs? I therefore do not accept Schiffman' s interpretation, although I believe that the passage from 4QMMT sheds light on the animal bone deposits from Qumran. In it, Jerusalem is referred to as the "sacred camp," as opposed to the Temple ("Sanctuary").

And [dogs] are not to be brought to the sacred camp for they may eat some of the bones from the Sanctuary to which meat is still attached. For Jerusalem is [the sacred camp] ... (4Q397:58-59; from Vermes 1998: 225). 17 For reviews of this problem with references see Delcor 1968: 403,414; Bilde 1998: 161; Schiffman 1983: 201; de Vaux 1973:1415; Yadin 1962: 198-201; van der Ploeg 1957: 170. Philo states that the Essenes refrained from sacrificing animals: " ...they have shown themselves especially devout in the service of God, not by offering sacrifices of animals, but by resolving to sanctify their minds" (Every Good Man is Free 75 [Colson and Whitaker 1960: 55 J). Similarly, Josephus remarks that, "they do not offer sacrifices, because they have more pure lustrations of their own ..." (Antiquities XVIII.1.5 [Whiston 1981: 377J; for discussions of this problematic passage see the authors cited above). In an email communication of 24 Feb. 2000, Magen Broshi expressed the opinion that, "The Qumranites, in whose library Deuteronomy was the most popular biblical book, could not have sacrificed outside Jerusalem." Also see Weinfeld 1986: 46, who noted that the Qumran sect differed conspicuously from other Greco-Roman associations in the complete absence of ordinances in the scrolls regarding sacrifice, oblations and convocations in temples on holidays. For the unacceptable suggestion that these bones are not deposits, but represent the remains of meals being eaten at the time the settlement was attacked and destroyed, see Laperrousaz 1978. 18 See for example King 1998: 57: "People of ordinary circumstances ate meat only rarely." Though the animal bone deposits indicate that meat was consumed at Qumran, we do not know how frequently it was served, and on what occasions (for example, was it served at every communal meal-or only at some?). 19 Despite the objections of Schiffman (1983: 201 and 210, n. 11 I) and others (for example van der Ploeg 1957: 175, who concluded that, "there is not much evidence for the existence of sacred meals amongst the Essenes"), most scholars seem to believe that these meals were ritual or sacral in nature (see for example Delcor 1968; Bilde 1998: 161: "it appears obvious that the common meal of the Qumran-Essenes had a ritual and priestly character"). For apparently sectarian laws governing the slaughtering and consumption of animals relative to the city of Jerusalem, see Yadin 1985: 186-91 (whether the Temple Scroll represents a sectarian document is disputed). According to the Temple Scroll, the consumption of animal flesh that had not been properly slaughtered in the Temple was prohibited within the boundaries of Jerusalem. For a recent review of the date and authors of the Temple Scroll, and a discussion of another scroll called "New Jerusalem," see Martinez 1998.

We do not appear to have evidence for procedures governing the disposal of the bones and other remains of sacrificed animals from the Jerusalem Temple. The holocausts (Hebrew 'olah), which were completely consumed by fire, presumably left only ashes and bits of bone. But in other types of sacrifices, such as the zevach and pesach, the animals were either wholly or partly consumed by the priests and people. After the sacrifice, the flesh of the animal was generally boiled, and any other remains were burned (see Yerkes 1952, especially 157). This seems to correspond with the physical evidence from Qumran, where most of the meat was boiled, and some was roasted. We do not know what happened to the remains of animals consumed during sacrificial banquets in ancient Jerusalem. Presumably, the bones were sacred and could not be thrown away. The passage from 4QMMT suggests that the bones were discarded somewhere in Jerusalem, not in the Temple (that is, not on the Temple Mount), but probably nearby. Since dogs had access to them, apparently the bones were not buried in deep favissae or pits, but must have been buried in shallow pits or piled on the ground in designated areas. Similarly, the animal bones at Qumran were deposited in or under potsherds and pots on the ground probably because of their status. They were considered a source of potential defilement, but they were associated with the communal meals (apparently a substitute for the Temple sacrifices) and therefore could not be randomly discarded. Perhaps the same applies to the pottery sherds and vessels associated with the animal bone deposits. Could these 19

COMMUNAL MEALS AND SCARED SPACE represent the dishes used in the preparation and consumption of these meals, which could not be reused (due to ritual purity concerns)? This interpretation could explain the discovery of hundreds of identical dishes in association with the communal dining rooms at Qumran (an excessive number for a community consisting of about 150 members).2° Although I do not believe that the bones from Qumran represent the remains of animal sacrifices, it makes sense to assume that like the communal meals in general, the manner in which animals were slaughtered and consumed followed strict ritual dictates, and perhaps reflected the community's preparation for the coming eschaton. It has been suggested that because blessings were pronounced over the meat at the time of the communal meals, the bones could not be randomly discarded (K. Schubert, cited in de Vaux 1973: 15, n. 3).

Stacks of dishes were found lying broken on the ground, just as in L86-89. They included thirty-nine shallow, open bowls with incurved rims (de Vaux 1956: fig. 4:2, 5, 7), 111 hemispherical cups (de Vaux 1956: figs. 4:1, 4, 6, 9, 12), nine deep cups or bowls with flaring walls (de Vaux 1956: fig. 4:10, 13, 16), one cup or bowl with a ledge rim (de Vaux 1956: 4:11), one large, deep bowl or krater (de Vaux 1956: fig. 4:15), one table jug (de Vaux 1956: fig. 4:3), two jugs or juglets with rounded bases (de Vaux 1956: fig. 4:8), and three wheelmade ("Herodian") oil lamps (de Vaux 1956: fig. 4:14). A large quantity of potsherds also was present (see Humbert and Chambon 1994: 327). Because of the wheelmade lamps, de Vaux initially assigned this assemblage to Period II. Later, however, he reassigned it to Period lb, since the wheelmade lamps looked rougher and earlier than the typical "Herodian" lamps, and because this deposit was covered by Period II (de Vaux 1973: 5, n. 1). I believe that this deposit should be assigned to the post-31 B.C.E. phase of Period lb, a phase that de Vaux did not recognize. In other words, this assemblage dates to the period after the earthquake of 31, and before the destruction of the site by fire in ca. 9/8 B.C.E. It therefore represents an assemblage dating to the reign of Herod the Great, as opposed to the assemblage from L86-89, which antedates the earthquake of 31.

Another piece of physical evidence suggests a correlation between the animal bone deposits at Qumran and the remains of sacrificial banquets in ancient Jerusalem. According to de Vaux, the animal bone deposits at Qumran were found "with varying frequency in almost all the open spaces of the Khirbeh" (de Vaux 1973: 13). This statement gives the impression that these deposits were widespread. In fact, according to de Vaux, these deposits were found in only seven loci: in Period lb, L23, 80, 92, 130, and 135, and in Period II, L73, 80, 130, and 132 (de Vaux 1973: 13, n. 1).21 Instead of being distributed throughout the settlement, these loci form two distinct clusters: one in Ll30, 132, and 135, at the northern end of the site; and the other in L 73, 80, and 92 at the southern and eastern ends (see fig. 1). The only locus that does not fall within these two clusters is L23, in the open courtyard in the center of the settlement's main part of the settlement. As I shall suggest below, this deposit belongs to the southeastern cluster.

This dating makes sense for two reasons. First, the rough appearance of the wheelmade lamps can be explained by the recent introduction of this type, only shortly before Herod's death (see Magness 1998a: 64-65). Second, the northern cluster of animal bone deposits and the ceramic assemblage in L114 are connected to a communal dining room in this area. Although some of these deposits dated to Period II, de Vaux noted that most belonged to Period lb. However, the Period lb deposits are all described as having been covered in the flood sediment that accumulated after the site's abandonment-including two pots containing bones that were carried away by the flood (see Humbert and Chambon 1994: Ll30, 132, 135; de Vaux 1973: 13).

Except for L23, all of the loci with animal bones are located on the fringes of the settlement, outside the main buildings. In other words, the animal bones were deliberately deposited outside the limits of the main buildings, not simply in the open spaces around them. The two clusters appear to correspond with the location of communal dining rooms inside the settlement. The southeast cluster (L73, 80, 92) surrounds the communal dining room in L77. Although L 77 was the only communal dining room identified by de Vaux, the northern cluster of animal bones (Ll30, 132, 135) points to the existence of a second one in this area, as does the presence of a store of dining dishes in LI 14, next to the round cistern.

As I have demonstrated elsewhere, the abandonment and flooding occurred after the site was destroyed by fire in ca. 9/8 B.C.E (Magness 1995). The pottery published from Ll30 and Ll35 includes some of the same types as in Ll14. 22 The assemblage from Ll30-135 contains at least four of the peculiar oil lamps of Hellenistic inspiration, a type that I have suggested elsewhere should be dated to the post-31 B.C.E. phase of Period lb (see de Vaux 1956: fig. 1:1-4; Magness 1998a: 63-64). Many of the vessels illustrated from Ll30-135 appear to be slightly earlier in date than those from LI 14 (note for example that most of the cups still have ring bases rather than disc bases, and there are no wheelmade oil lamps), reflecting their deposition here over the course of at least 20-30 years, whereas the assemblage from LI 14 represents the dishes in use at the time of the settlement's destruction in ca. 9/8 B.C.E.

I believe that most if not all of the community at Qumran lived in tents, huts, and caves outside the settlement; see Broshi and Eshel 1999: 330. 21 In an email correspondence on 24 Feb. 2000, Magen Broshi informed me that Yitzhak Magen found animal bones in the still unpublished excavations he conducted in the early 1990s at the southern end of the site (that is, to the south of the area excavated by de Vaux). According to Humbert, animal bone deposits were found in L44, 60, 73, 80, 90, 92, 93, and 98 (Humbert 1994: 204; without an assignment to periods). This list only partly overlaps with de Vaux's. However, since no animal deposits are mentioned in de Vaux's published field notes for L44, 60, 90, 93, 98 (see Humbert and Chambon 1996), Humbert's list appears to be inaccurate. 20

Is it possible to identify the communal dining room where Compare for example the hemispherical cups from Ll 14 in de Vaux 1956: fig. 4: 1, 4, 6, 9, 12, with those from L130-35 in de Vaux 1956: figs. 1:14; 3:10.

22

20

SHAPING COMMUNITY these cooked animals were consumed, and the dishes from L114 used? It could not lie to the north, east, and south of the pantry in L114 and the round cistern next to it (Lll0), as this area was occupied by miqva' ot and workshops. Interestingly, the latter included a large baking oven (in L105: Humbert and Chambon 1994: 325; de Vaux 1973: 26; for another oven in L109 see Humbert and Chambon 1994: 326). Instead, the dining room should be sought in the complex of rooms immediately to the west of LI 10 and Lll4---that is, in Llll, 120, 121, 122, 123. Loci 130, 132, and 135 lie just outside and to the north of these rooms. However, the partition walls and installations in these loci make them unsuitable candidates for a communal dining room. 23 Instead, I propose that the dining room was located in the second story level above these loci.

(Schiffman 1983: 199). This suggests that during their communal meals at Qumran, the sectarians followed the same custom of dining while seated. Although I do not wish to push Josephus's testimony too far, in his description of the communal meals of the Essenes, he uses the Greek term for sitting (kathisanton), instead of a term for reclining (such as klino) (Wars 11.130).25 The fact that the sectarians drank non-alcoholic "new wine" and therefore remained quiet and sober during the communal meals also contrasts with GrecoRoman symposia, which were characterized by the consumption of large quantities of wine, and loud and boisterous behavior (Delcor 1968: 407). 26

The existence of a second story level in this area is attested by a staircase in LI 13 (see fig. 4). 24 Because the five surviving stone steps rise towards the south, de Vaux assumed that they led to a second story above LlOl (Humbert and Chambon 1994: 327; the steps are visible in Photos 227, 231). However, the staircase must have turned 90 degrees, to reach the area above Llll, 120, 121, 122, and 123 (see fig. 1). It is paralleled by the staircase in L13 in the main part of the settlement, which turned a 90 degree angle to reach the rooms above Ll, 2, 4 (see de Vaux 1973: 7). According to de Vaux, LI 11 was originally an open courtyard (de Vaux 1973: 8). After the earthquake of 31 B.C.E., its eastern wall was doubled and it was roofed over. Interestingly, the staircase in Ll 13 appears in the published plans of Period II, but not in Period lb (see Humbert and Chambon 1994: PL XVII). I believe that its construction is contemporary with the roofing of L 111, and dates to the post-31 B.C.E. phase of Period lb. In other words, all of the available evidence suggests that after the earthquake of 31 B.C.E., a new dining room was constructed above Llll, 120, 121, 122, and 123. The dishes were stored in Ll 14, and the animal bones from some of the meals consumed were buried just to the north of, and outside, this building.

Another feature of the dining rooms at Qumran accords with the evidence of Josephus and the scrolls. As noted above, the members were required to immerse themselves in a ritual bath before participating in the communal meals. It is therefore not surprising to find a large miqveh (L56, 58) outside the entrance to the dining room in L 77, and another two (Lll7-118) just to the east of the dining room above Llll, 120, 121, 122, 123 (see fig. 1). Although miqva'ot were scattered throughout the settlement, their distribution does not appear to be random. Instead, they seem to be associated with areas where ritual purity was required, or in areas where ritual impurity was incurred. For example, miqva' ot are located at the entrances to the communal dining rooms, at the entrance to the room with the toilet, 27 and in areas with workshops. 28

The concept of space at Qumran

In fact, the locations of the toilet, the miqva' ot, and the animal bone deposits seem to reflect a sectarian concept of ritually pure versus less pure and impure space. Discussions of the architecture of Qumran have focused on the two main buildings-the core building complex on the east, and the one centering on the round cistern Lll0 on the west. The buildings of the eastern complex have been viewed as an integral unit consisting of a square, marked by the tower on the north (see for example Humbert 1994: 169-75). Yizhar Hirschfeld has claimed that because this layout displays similarities with rural villas elsewhere in Roman Palestine, Qumran was a manor house, not a sectarian settlement (Hirschfeld 1998).29

It is impossible to determine whether this dining room

completely replaced the one in L 77, or whether both were used during the post-31 B.C.E. phase of Period lb. However, the fact that animal bone deposits were found in Period II contexts in both clusters suggests that the rooms were used as dining rooms during the final phase of the site's occupation, that is, during the first century C.E. (see de Vaux: 1973, 27). The absence of evidence for benches used as dining couches accords with Schiffman's observation based on the scrolls, that the participants in the messianic banquets were to eat sitting, not reclining, following the Biblical Jewish rather than the Greco-Roman custom

For a rebuttal of the suggestion that L30 (the "scriptorium") was used as a triclinium, see Reich 1995; also see de Vaux 1973: 29-33. 26 Also see van der Ploeg 1957: 169, who noted that, "The way in which the Essenes took their common meals was, according to Josephus, peculiar to them: they took them in silence and were only allowed to speak one after another." 27 Significantly, the miqveh next to the toilet in L51 went out of use together with the toilet, after the earthquake of 31 B.C.E. (see below). That this miqveh was destroyed in the earthquake of 31 contradicts Humbert's claim that Qumran was a nonsectarian villa in this period (Humbert 1994). 28 These are L71, which is next to the potters' workshop; and Ll 17-118, which are associated with the workshops around the round cistern, L 110. Another miqveh is located in L 138, at the northwest entrance to the site. 29 Hirschfeld's error stems from focusing on specific morphological similarities of design, while disregarding all of the other evidence from Qumran-including the absence of interior decoration, the 25

The hoard of Tyrian tetradrachmas was found in L 120. De Vaux identified these loci as storage rooms (1973: 8): Humbert (1994: 192-93) suggested that Ll 11-121 functioned as a communal dining room in the first century B.C.E., but were converted into a library in the first century C.E. 24 This despite the fact that de Vaux's notes (see Humbert and Chambon 1994) do not mention the remains of a second story level above these loci. Humbert (1994: 192), states in his discussion of Ll 11, 120, and 121 that, "la fouille n'a pas montre de place pour un escalier." 23

21

COMMUNAL MEALS AND SCARED SPACE The inhabitants of Qumran, however, did not view their settlement as neatly drawn lines on a top plan. Instead, it consisted of a series of spaces with varying degrees of ritual purity or impurity. 30 This is one reason that immersion in a ritual bath was required before entering the communal dining room. The miqva' ot in the eastern part of the western building (Lll7, 118), and the one at the southeastern end of the site (L 71) were associated with the surrounding workshops; another (L48-49) was associated with the toilet in L51. The miqva'ot in L56-58 and Lll7-118 apparently were used for ritual purification before entering the communal dining rooms.

The two parts of the settlement at Qumran seem to reflect this kind of spatial concept. In each part, the western half contains the rooms with the greatest degree of ritual purity or sanctity-including the communal dining rooms, and in the main part of the settlement, the "scriptorium" and a possible meeting room (L4)-paralleling the "Temple." The eastern half of each part of the settlement contains workshops, kitchens, and bakeries, and in the main part of the settlement, a toilet. The animal bones were deposited in and around these eastern halves. These areas seem to parallel the "sacred camp" referred to in 4QMMT and other documents. 32 Finally, the cemeteries, associated with the greatest degree of ritual impurity, lie to the east, completely outside the boundaries of the settlement (perhaps mirroring the location of the traditional Jewish burial ground in Jerusalem, on the slopes of the Mount of Olives, to the east of the walled city).

This conclusion brings us back to the problem of the animal bone deposit in the open courtyard discussed above (L23). As already noted, this deposit is the only one that lies outside the two clusters. Its presence suggests that the eastern part of the main core of the settlement was considered a ritually impure space. The animal bones in L23 and the toilet in L51 were apparently associated with ritual impurity (for the toilet see Magness 1998c: 37-40). 31 The same is probably true of L38-41 to the north, which contained a kitchen. All of these areas were served, at least before the earthquake of 31, by the miqveh in L48-49 (for other workshops in this area, including in L34, see de Vaux 1973: 16). This configuration means that the eastern part of the settlement's main core was occupied by workshops and installations associated with ritual impurity, paralleling the arrangement of rooms in the western half of the settlement.

The arrangement of space at Qumran is therefore reminiscent of the passage from 4QMMT, with the main buildings (that is, the western halves of each part of the settlement) symbolizing the "Temple," and the areas around them corresponding with the "sacred camp. "33 Interestingly, the toilet in L5 l (and the adjacent miqveh in L48-49) went out of use and do not appear to have been replaced after the earthquake of 31 B.C.E. Presumably the members now had to leave the settlement altogether to use toilet facilities (and/or relieve themselves in the manner described by Josephus). Perhaps these facilities were located to the northwest of the settlement, an arrangement that would parallel the location of the toilets mentioned in the Temple Scroll, "to the northwest of the city" (see Yadin 1985: 178182).34

That all of the animal bones were deposited in or around the outside of these ritually impure areas may be a physical expression of the concept of the "Temple" (the areas requiring the greatest degree of ritual purity) versus the "sacred camp" (the areas with lesser degrees of ritual purity, or with ritual impurity). The disposition of space at Qumran seems to correspond with the following passage in the Temple Scroll: "And you shall make three places to the east of the city, separated one from another, into which shall come the lepers and the people who have a discharge and the men who have had a nocturnal emission" (Temple Scroll XLVI:15; this translation is from Yadin 1985, 173; also see Vermes 1998: 206).

Before entering the settlement, the members would have immersed themselves in the miqveh in Ll38, at the northwest entrance to the site. The existence of a toilet within the settlement at Qumran suggests that at least until 31 B.C.E., this eastern area did not strictly correspond with the "Temple city" or wilderness camp of the Temple Scroll, which prohibits toilets within the city (see Yadin 1985: 17879).35 Similarly, the only animal bone deposit attested 32 Nevertheless, the camp was considered "sacred," as indicated by references to the presence of angels in its midst; see Schiffman 1994: 345; Vermes 1998: 159 (lQSa 11:3-9). 33 In the Temple Scroll, the Temple city is made equivalent to the wilderness camp of Deuteronomy 23; just as the latter surrounded Sinai during the revelation, so the former surrounds the Temple. Thus, the laws of a sacred camp apply to the Temple city (Bokser 1985: 282). Some scholars believe that the "Temple" (Hebrew 'ir ha-miqdash, or city of the sanctuary) in the Temple Scroll refers to the entire city of Jerusalem, while according to others it refers only to the area of the Temple Mount (see Yadin 1985: 170-71; Schiffman 1996: 83, notes that the temenos of the Temple Mount was so large it would have covered the whole city of Jerusalem in that period). 34 Y adin suggested identifying "the place called Betsoa," which Josephus describes as having been located on the northwest side of Jerusalem, with an Essene toilet. He noted that the Gate of the Essenes, which Josephus also mentions, was located nearby. Yadin thus proposed that this gate became associated with the Essenes because they used it to gain access to their toilet facilities, and perhaps chose to live in its vicinity (Yadin 1985: 180-82). 35 Obviously, when the Temple Scroll was composed, toilets

Yadin noted that a number of rabbinic regulations prohibit the location of workshops to the west of Jerusalem (Yadin 1985: 177; he suggested this was perhaps because the prevailing winds in Jerusalem are westerly). nature of the finds (such as the pottery), and the scrolls themselves (see Magness 1998b: 54-57). The archaeological remains at Qumran find a good analogy in Weinfeld's observation that, "Although the external form and structure of this sect is similar to that of the Hellenistic associations, the basic ideology of the sect is unique" (Weinfeld 1986: 8). 3 ° For the concept of sacred space in ancient Judaism relating to Jerusalem and the Temple, see Eliade 1987, especially 22, 42-43: Smith 1978: 113; Bokser 1985. 31 The distribution of these deposits supports Schiffman's suggestion that the sectarians considered animal bones to be a source of ritual impurity (Schiffman 1994: 338), though they were apparently placed on the ground just outside the main buildings because of their association with the communal meals (which were ritual or sacral in nature).

22

SHAPING COMMUNITY within the settlement dates to Period lb. 36 Could the apparent disappearance of toilet facilities and animal bone deposits within the settlement after Period lb (either after the earthquake of 31 B.C.E., or after 9/8 B.C.E.) reflect a reorganization of space more literally along the lines of the sectarian ideal Jerusalem?

CLASSICS DEPARTMENT TUFTS UNIVERSITY MEDFORD, MASSACHUSETTS 02155 Jmagness@lnfonet. Tufts.Edu

existed within the city of Jerusalem. If it was normal practice to locate them outside the city, the distance requirement it mandates would have been unnecessary. 36 As noted above, L23 contained the only animal bone deposit found inside the settlement (see de Vaux 1973:13; Humbert and Chambon 1994: 301). It is not clear whether it belongs to the preearthquake (pre-31 B.C.E.) phase of Period lb, or to the postearthquake phase (between 31 and ca. 9/8 B.C.E.).

23

COMMUNAL MEALS AND SCARED SPACE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alon, Gedaliahu. 1957. Studies in Jewish History in the Times of the Second Temple, the Mishna, and the Talmud I (in Hebrew). Tel-Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad. Baumgarten, Joseph M. 1992. The Purification Rituals in DJD 7. In The Dead Sea Scrolls, Forty Years of Research, eds. Devorah Dimant and Uriel Rappaport, 199-209. Leiden: Brill. Baumgarten, Joseph M. 1998. The Purification Liturgies. In The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years, eds. Peter W. Flint and James C. VanderKam, 2: 200-12. Leiden: Brill. Bilde, Per. 1998. The Common Meal in the Qumran-Essene Communities. In Meals in a Social Context, Aspects of the Communal Meal in the Hellenistic and Roman World, eds. Inge Nielsen and Hanne S. Nielsen, 145-66. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press. Bokser, Baruch M. 1985. Approaching Sacred Space. Harvard Theological Review 78, 3-4:279-99. Broshi, Magen. 1998. Was Qumran, Indeed, a Monastery? In Caves of Enlightenment, Proceedings of the American Schools of Oriental Research Dead Sea Scrolls Jubilee Symposium (1947-1997), ed. James H. Charlesworth, 19-37. North Richland Hills, Tex.: BIBAL. Broshi, Magen, and Hanan Eshel. 1999. Residential Caves at Qumran. Dead Sea Discoveries 6: 328-48. Brown, Peter. 1988. The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity. New York: Columbia University Press. Brown, Peter. 1989. Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity. Berkeley: University of California Press. Cansdale, Lena. 1997. Qumran and the Essenes. Ttibingen: J.C.B. Mohr. Colson, Francis H. and George H. Whitaker, trans. 1960. Philo with an English Translation in Ten Volumes (Loeb edition). Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Delcor, Mathias. 1968. Repas cultuels esseniens et therapeutes, thiases et haburoth. Revue de Qumran 6: 401-25. Eliade, Mircea. 1987. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, trans. Willard R. Trask of 1959 text. New York: Harcourt Brace. Fraade, Steven D. 1987. Ascetical Aspects of Ancient Judaism. In Jewish Spirituality from the Bible through the Middle Ages, ed. Arthur Green, 1: 25388. New York: Crossroad. Goranson, Stephen. 1998. Others and Intra-Jewish Polemic as Reflected in Qumran Texts. In The Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years, eds. Peter W. Flint and James C. VanderKam, 2: 534-51. Leiden: Brill. Hempel, Charlotte. 1998. Community Structures in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Admission, Organization, Disciplinary Procedures. In The Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty

Years, eds. Peter W. Flint and James C. VanderKam, 2: 67-92. Leiden: Brill. Hirschfeld, Yizhar. 1992. The Judean Desert Monasteries in the Byzantine Period. New Haven: Yale University Press. Hirschfeld, Yizhar. 1998. Early Roman Manor Houses in Judea and the Site of Khirbet Qumran. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 57: 161-89. Humbert, Jean-Baptiste. 1994. L'espace sacre a Qumran. Revue Biblique 101-2: 161-214. Humbert, Jean-Baptiste, and Alain Chambon. 1994. Fouilles de Khirbet Qumran et de Ai"nF eshkha I. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht. King, Philip J. 1998. Commensality in the Biblical World. In Hesed ve-Emet, Studies in Honor of Ernest S. Frerichs, eds. Jodi Magness and Seymour Gitin, 53-62. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Kugler, Robert A. 1998. Priesthood at Qumran. In The Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years, eds. Peter W. Flint and James C. VanderKam, 2: 93-116. Leiden: Brill. Kuhn, Karl G. 1957. The Lord's Supper and the Communal Meal at Qumran. In The Scrolls and the New Testament, ed. Krister Stendahl, 65-93. New York: Harper. Laperrousaz, Ernest-Marie. 1978. A propos des depots d'ossements d'animaux trouves a Qoumran. Revue de Qumran 9: 569-73. Magness, Jodi. 1994. The Community at Qumran in Light of Its Pottery. In Methods of Investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Khirbet Qumran Site: Present Realities and Future Prospects, eds. Michael 0. Wise et al., 39-50. New York: New York Academy of Sciences. Magness, Jodi. 1995. The Chronology of the Settlement at Qumran in the Herodian Period. Dead Sea Discoveries 2: 58-65. Magness, Jodi. 1998a. The Chronology of Qumran, Ein Feshkha, and Ein el-Ghuweir. In Mogilany 1995: Papers on the Dead Sea Scrolls offered in memory of Aleksy Klawek, ed. J. Zdzislaw Kapera, 55-76. Krakow: Enigma Press. Magness, Jodi. 1998b. Qumran Archaeology: Past Perspectives and Future Prospects. In The Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years, eds. Peter W. Flint and James C. VanderKam, 1: 47-77. Leiden: Brill. Magness, Jodi. 1998c. Two Notes on the Archaeology of Qumran. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 312: 37-44. Martinez, Florentino Garcia. 1998. The Temple Scroll and the New Jerusalem. In The Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years, eds. Peter W. Flint and James C. VanderKam, 2: 431-60. Leiden: Brill. Murray, Robert. 1974/75. The Exhortation to Candidates for Ascetical Vows at Baptism in the Ancient Syriac Church. New Testament Studies 21: 59-80. 24

SHAPING COMMUNITY Stegemann, Hartmut. 1998. The Library of Qumran. Leiden: Brill. Sutcliffe, Edmund F. 1960. Sacred Meals at Qumran? Heythrop Journal l: 48-65. Thackeray, Francis St. John, trans. 1956. Josephus with an English Translation in Nine Volumes (Loeb edition). Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. VanderKam, James C. 1994. The Dead Sea Scrolls Today. Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans. van der Ploeg, Johannes. 1957. The Meals of the Essenes. Journal of Semitic Studies 2: 163-75. de Vaux, Roland. 1956. Fouilles de Khirbet Qumriin, Rapport preliminaire sur les 3e, 4e, et 5e campagnes. Revue Biblique 63: 533-77. de Vaux, Roland. 1973. Archaeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls. London: Oxford University Press. Vermes, Geza. 1998. The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English. New York: Penguin. Weinfeld, Moshe. 1986. The Organizational Pattern and the Penal Code of the Qumran Sect. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht. Whiston, William, trans. 1984. Josephus, Complete Works. Grand Rapids, Mich: Kregel. Yadin, Yigael. 1962. The Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yadin, Yigael. 1985. The Temple Scroll. New York: Random House. Yerkes, Royden K. 1952. Sacrifice in Greek and Roman Religions and Early Judaism. New York: Scribner.

Naude, Jacobus A. 1998. Holiness in the Dead Sea Scrolls. In The Dead Sea Scrolls after FiftyYears, eds. Peter W. Flint and James C. VanderKam, 2: 171-99. Leiden: Brill. Reich, Ronny. 1995. A Note on the Function of Room 30 ("the Scriptorium") at Khirbet Qumran. Journal of Jewish Studies 46: 157-60. Schiffman, Lawrence H. 1980. Communal Meals at Qumran. Revue de Qumran 10: 45-56. Schiffman, Lawrence H. 1983. Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Courts, Testimony and the Penal Code. Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press. Schiffman, Lawrence H. 1992. Laws Pertaining to Women in the Temple Scroll. In The Dead Sea Scrolls, Forty Years of Research, eds. Devorah Dimant and Uriel Rappaport, 210-28. Leiden: Brill. Schiffman, Lawrence H. 1994. Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society. Schiffman, Lawrence H. 1996. Jerusalem in the Dead Sea Scrolls. In The Centrality of Jerusalem, Historical Perspectives, eds. Marcel Poorthuis and Chana Safrai, 73-88. Kampen, The Netherlands: Kok Pharos. Schuller, Eileen M. 1994. Women in the Dead Sea Scrolls. In Methods of Investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Khirbet Qumran Site: Present Realities and Future Prospects, eds. M. 0. Wise et al., 115-31. New York: New York Academy of Sciences. Smith, Jonathan Z. 1978. Earth and Gods. In Map is Not Territory, Studies in the History of Religion, ed. Jonathan Z. Smith, 104-28. Leiden: Brill.

25

COMMUNAL MEALS AND SCARED SPACE

FIGURES

Fig. 1. Plan of Qumran in Periods lb and II (from de Vaux 1973, pl. XXXIX). Fig. 2: Stacks of broken dishes in L86-89 ("the pantry") (from de Vaux 1973, pl. X a). Fig. 3: Animal bone deposits in Ll30 (from de Vaux 1973, pl. XI a).

Fig. 4: View of the western part of the settlement at Qumran, looking south, showing Ll (round cistern) in the foreground, with the staircase in Ll 13 behind it and to the left (from de Vaux 1973, pl.Va).

26

SHAPING COMMUNITY

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