In my ongoing efforts to collect all the #DeadSeaScrolls obscura and ephemera that I can, I've recently gotten my hands on a collection of mid-century French #DSS trading cards. A thread with some thoughts...

These trading cards were produced by Leibig, a meat extract processing company, which, throughout the 19th & 20th centuries, distributed trading cards as a marketing strategy to popularize their product. They usually produced small sets of 6 or 12 cards. http://www.cartolino.com/en/liebig-cards.html

The Liebig Scrolls trading cards were produced in 1962. They are in a set of 6 and have explanations on the reverse that tell the story of the scrolls' discovery, history, and early study. They have the Sanguinetti catalogue # 1779. http://www.cartolino.com/liebig/reeks1701/index.html

The first card in the set tells the story of the Scrolls' modern discovery in 1947. As the story goes, a Bedouin shepherd of the Ta'amarah tribe, Muhammad ed-Dhib, was tending flock in the NW Dead Sea region when he stumbled upon the scrolls in what has become known as cave 1.

The second card continues this story of discovery with the initial exploration of the cave by Bedouin tribesmen. On the reverse, the card describes the scrolls collection as like a "genizah," a common analogy in many early descriptions of the collection.

The story of the Scrolls' initial discovery is messy with conflicting claims about dates and locations. Already in the 1950s scholars were trying to iron out these details. For a brief foray into these questions, see Brent Nongbri's series on Qumran Cave 1 https://brentnongbri.com/2020/04/25/qumran-cave-1-questions-part-3-is-cave-1-really-cave-1/

The third card depicts finds from the caves as well as the settlement site of Khirbet Qumran, which is only a short walk from most of the caves. The explanation focuses in on the Copper Scroll, shown at left in 2 pieces. Other finds included storage jars, oil lamps, and inkwells.

The fourth card starts telling the backstory of the scrolls, their ancient history. Depciting the so-called "scriptorium" (Kh.Q. L30), the card tells of the scrolls' copying on site.

We now know that many of the scrolls were not produced by the community on site. At the same time, the identification of this locus as a "scriptorium" has been debated. However, the discovery of inkwells in this space suggests some kind of writing activity took place here.

Note how the illustration accurately depicts the benchs along the locus's walls, although these were plastered, along with the table, which was rather longer and more continuous than depicted here. See, e.g., the photograph below from the Allegro archive ( https://dqcaas.com/photographic-collections/private-collection-of-mrs-judith-brown/)

I should add that scholar's are still not entirely sure how this furniture would have been used. Artistic depictions of the "scriptorium" differ in their rendition of the space's use, so don't get to wed to one notion.

The fifth card contines to tell the story of the sectarian community that occupied the settlement at Kh. Qumran. Depicting a communal meal in the so-called "refectory" (L77), the explanation identifies the group as Essenes, and describes them as a cenobitic (monastic) group.

While this sect was surely a Second Temple period Jewish association, to which we can ascribe tendencies of commensality, it is no longer helpful to think of it along the lines of later Christian monasticism. Better analogies lie in contemporaneous Greek and Roman associations.

I should probably add that while the "scriptorium" held the bench and table remains, the "refectory" did not. The picnic-table-looking set-up illustrated here does not represent well the dining practices of the period.

The plan of the "refectory" arguably parallels plans of contemporaneous triclinia from Judea, and the remains of dishwares and animal bone deposits suggest this was indeed a dining space or assembly hall. But how should we picture the members filling the space?

If we follow Josephus's description of the Essenes (War 2.129-133), the group's members were "seated" (kathisatōn) for the meal. This description, according to Jodi Magness, accords with sitting on the floor rather than reclining in the Greco-Roman manner.

FWIW cards 4 and 5 also reminded me of the images produced for the 1958 @NatGeo article "The Men Who Hid the Dead Sea Scrolls," which also tells the story of the scrolls' history, modern discovery, and early study. E.g., this great illustration of the "scriptorium."

The sixth & final card tells of the team of international scholars, from Western Europe & USA, who began piecing together the thousands of scrolls fragments. They worked out of a room known as the "scrollery" in the Palestine Archaeological Museum (today the Rockefeller Museum).

The depiction here is probably based on published photographs of the scholars working in the the scrollery, such as this one.

This team of all Christian scholars was working concurrently but apart from the study of Scrolls which had been procured by Hebrew Univeristy Prof. Eliezer Sukenik. The early division of scrolls study along religious lines would be overcome in the subsequent decades.

The value of the Dead Sea Scrolls as evidence for study of Judaism in the Hellenistic and Roman periods has always been impressive, but the narrative of the Scrolls has been, and often continues to be, dominated by their value for Christinaity (cf., the MOTB's 16 fake DSS frags).

Indeed, the explanation for the sixth and final card in this series concludes that study of the scrolls will help scholars and enthusiasts alike to get a better idea of movements around the turn of the era, "a crucial period for understanding the origins of Christianity."

This thought, and my other observations, is not to say "they got it wrong," but merely to reflect on how the story of the Scrolls (still at its inception in 1962!) has been told, and continues to be told today. We know a lot more now, and that's not a bad thing.

Thanks for reading, and do let me know if you know of other Scrolls obscura and ephemera!