BAR Jr.: Housewares and Recipes from 2,000 Years Ago

The housewares on these pages are not a manufacturer’s new line. Nor are they the work of a clever department store display, trying to launch a new line of cookware. They are actually 1,600 to 2,000 years old, yet their design is so contemporary that they could very well be from a modern housewares specialty shop.

This fascinating collection of objects for everyday kitchen and dining use is part of an exhibit^a at the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem. The artifacts—from the time of the Second Temple and the Byzantine period—have been unearthed in Israel over the past 25 years.

At Qumran, for example, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were written, more than 1,000 pieces of tableware were discovered, the largest collection of housewares ever found in a single excavation. The Manual of Discipline, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, reveals many details about the eating customs of that Qumran community.