The
most important architectural element of the site of Qumran for its general interpretation
is probably its stepped and plastered pools. They are frequently used to determine
the character of the settlement and the religious affiliation of its inhabitants.
The highly varied and at times contradictory interpretations regarding the functions
of these pools are the result of a primarily textually oriented analysis of
these installations. Rather than using the written sources as a point of departure
for the analysis of the Qumran pools, this paper will focus on the archaeological
data, using the literary testimony only as a secondary or supplementary source
to the material evidence.
Other sites within the Palestinian context have revealed similar large concentrations
of stepped pools. Several characteristics, however, distinguish the Qumran installations
from most others. The plastered basins and pools at this latter site are much
larger than the remaining stepped installations known to us from other places.
Furthermore, there are considerably more stepped pools than other types of plastered
installations, whereas at other sites the stepped pools only constitute a small
percentage of the total corpus of plastered installations. In this paper I will
argue that the dividing line between pools that were used for ritual immersion
and those that were used for water storage was not as clear as previously assumed.