The
discovery of a "pantry" in locus 89 at Kh. Qumran provided us with
a first hand look at the meal vessels (or table ware) of the community from
period 1.
As indicated by deVaux, the locus should not be viewed as a general storage
room for general pottery since several pottery forms (including cookingpots,
storage jars and lids) are missing from the locus. The term "pantry"
is acceptable since the vast majority of the vessels might be classified as
tableware and serving vessels for meals. The fact that extraordinary quantities
of each pottery form were found would lead one to assume that this assemblage
served the needs of a large community (and not that of a family or an extended
family). The assemblage consists of bowls, plates, cups, terrines, jugs and
ovoid storage jars. The vast majority of the vessels were either bowls or plates
or cups. Each of these forms were found uniformly stacked upside down in rows
within neatly segregated areas. Since the vessels were found segregated by form
and set in neatly stacked rows this would lead one to believe that the arrangement
of this repertoire might in some way reflect the key elements, including the
"table setting" and serving vessels, used in the community meals.
The numbers and percentages of vessels within the repertoire might be understood
to be random and depending, to a large extent, upon the survival rate of the
various vessels. However, it is the present researcher's conclusion that coroborative
ceramic and literary evidence exists to confirm these ratios as both meaningful
and helpful for understanding the organization of communal meals at Qumran.