In 1955 Elizabeth Crowfoot published 77 pieces of textile from Cave 1 in Qumran. Some 400 other textiles from different caves at the site were kept in Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem for c. 50 years. Some were briefly published by Mireille Bélis in 2003 who examined them prior to cleaning. As an historian she emphasized issues such as the tie between the scrolls and the textiles and practically did not refer to any technical details such as the kind of textile, the direction in which the threads are spun, etc. These textiles have recently been transferred to the laboratories of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
The conservation was done by Raia Vinitzky and I compiled the catalogue. The lecture will discuss the dating of the textiles, raw materials, spinning, dying, weaving, the clothes they were used for, as well as scroll wrappings, and identifying aspects stemming from all of these.
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