The Provenance of some selected pottery from the Cave of the Letters in the Judean Desert, by Neutron Activation Analysis. Jan Gunneweg and Marta Balla Mid March 2002, R. Freund approached us to solve one of the most interesting questions he and his team had encountered in connection with the Cave of the Letters. He asked: Is the content of the cave that of 130-135 AD on the basis of the letters of Bar Koziba found, or was the cave also earlier occupied by pre-70 AD sectarians who had fled either Jericho or Jerusalem or Qumran? Our answer was that the neutron activation technique was not designed to provide a date to artifacts. However, we gave him to understand that if we would be able to trace the cave's pottery to either Jerusalem or Qumran where it was manufactured, we would indirectly obtain a date since both sites were entirely destroyed by the Roman general Titus in 70 AD. Pottery in the Cave of the Letters being traced to either one or both of these places would provide a date that antedates the destruction, i.e. some of the pottery in the Cave of the Letters might be of pre-70 AD. At the end of March 2002, a pottery provenance study was started that would serve as a pilot study for further research, if needed. [In Press] Comments? Please write: Jan Gunneweg To return, click Archaeometry abstracts of our work or click "BACK" or click the Homepage . Jan Gunneweg Ph.D., The Hebrew University, revised November 2005