Scholars
have tended to interpret Qumran as a communal, democratic settlement on the
one hand, or as a hieratic, sacred liturgical complex on the other. Crucial
to such arguments, but often ignored, are material clues that point to social
and ceremonial construction of space. This paper proposes an anthropological
interpretation of Qumran's walls as physical properties of symbolic discourse.
Walls, by their very presence, set up binary oppositions such as settlement/wilderness,
pure/impure, us/them, permitted/forbidden, sacred/profane. Barriers also act
to link substances that might not be related otherwise. The inherent gestures
that walls embody gain particular importance at Qumran in relation to one enigmatic
long wall defining the settlement, but often described as two walls. The "esplanade
wall" consists of a stone structure running north-south along the marl
terrace with settlement and caves to its west and cemetery and Dead Sea to its
east. The "littoral wall" runs intermittently from Wadi Qumran southwards
to the springs of Ain Feshkha. Were these walls linked to each other, as well
as to systems of inclusion and exclusion practiced at Qumran? Their configuration-stretching
longitudinally alongside the site and shoreline but not explicitly "enclosing"
a space-renders their purpose especially difficult to decipher. What is at stake
in the penetration of barriers at Qumran? After introducing scholarly interpretations
and controversies about the walls, this study examines recent archaeological
evidence and contextualizes the walls in relation to contemporary counterparts
in neighboring areas.