A Hub of Scribal Activity?

Inkwells from Qumran are of more than insouciant interest. These inkwells bear intimately on several important questions—whether Dead Sea Scrolls were written at Qumran, the nature of the Qumran settlement (religious community, winter villa, military fortress or commercial entrepôt), the relationship (if any) between the Qumran settlement and the scrolls, and, ultimately, the nature of the library itself. That is why the “discovery” of another inkwell from the site is important. In this case, the new inkwell is also very beautiful and quite unusual.