Visual Study of Pathologies in the Cemetery of Qumran

The remains of 33 human skeletons were excavated in winter 2015-2016 in the northern part of the cemetery of Khirbet Qumran. The remains were visually surveyed on-site for the presence of pathologies. Combining data from a previous excavation episode, porosity in the orbital roof (cribra orbitalia) is manifested in about a third of the sample of 46 adult individuals, and porosity in the cranial vault (cribra cranii) is manifested in one out of 23 skulls. These frequencies are within the expected range in the lowland area of the Dead Sea shores. About a third of the population (13 out of 43 temporal bones in the currently studied sample, and a few more from an unknown number of previously excavated skeletons) expressed an auditory torus (exostosis), a bony growth in the external auditory canal. In the postcranial skeleton, a case of fusion of thoracic vertebrae is interpreted as DISH. No evidence for trauma was found in the current sample of complete long bones. Three individuals manifested periostitis in their lower extremities. Our interpretation of the results, based on comparisons with other contemporaneous sites in Israel, is that the people of Qumran, in general, could have suffered malnutrition: A diet high in sugars and poor in fresh fruits and vegetables, possibly resulted in vitamin C deficiency, is assumed. We suggest that having extremely high frequency of ear diseases (associated with exposure to cold water and wind), compared to only 1% in the general archaeological record in classical-period Israel, is the result of an extensive use of the many open-air pools (miqva’ot) that are found in the site.