Mystery of the 2,000 year old Toilet

Nothing gets my blood rushing like a good archeological tiff. The latest: searchers found a 2,000 year old latrine full of very old human feces. What has some archeologists jumping up and down, some in excitement, others in apoplexy, is the claim that this ancient toilet may have been used by the authors of the Dead Sea scrolls.

Here's where the brawl starts: some scholars say that the Essenes, a community of ascetics with fastidious habits, lived in Qumran, and that's where they wrote the scrolls. What little is known about the Essenes comes from a Roman scholar who tells us that these monks observed vows of celibacy and ritual purity which involved relieving themselves a good distance away from their dwellings. A nine minute walk uphill to the toilet, longer in ropey sandals, is indeed a good distance away. So therefore, say the discoverers of the latrine, this is definitive proof that the Essenes lived in Qumran.

Nonsense, say critics, who point out that archeologists have excavated a much handier toilet right in the middle of ancient Qumran, close to the Dead Sea. They say that Qumran was an ordinary community, mainly of potters and farmers, and that the scrolls were probably written in Jerusalem and then hidden in a cave by Jews fleeing Roman invaders in the First Century. The argument could be resolved once a thorough study is done of the feces in the latrine: the Essenes, after all, were vegetarians. Stay tuned to the mystery of the 2,000 year old latrine.
by Tim McGirk/Jerusalem