SCRIBAL PRACTICES AND APPROACHE S ... - Emanuel Tov

52 Chapter 3: Writing and Writing Materials
Little is known regarding the pens used for writing the Judean Desert texts, as these have not been
preserved. The pens used were probably of the calamus (kavlamo", swmlwq) type, made from reed
(hnq, kavnna, kavnnh, canna). See Haran, “Workmanship,” especially 76; Diringer, The Book,
553–63. For a detailed description of scribal implements in the ancient Near East, see Ashton,
Scribal Habits, ch. 3. Pfann, DJD XXXVI, 520 notes with regard to the pens used for the texts
written in the Cryptic A script: ‘For the most part a reed pen tip, that had been carefully honed
to have a rectangular cut tip, was used, which allowed the scribe to produce strokes with shading
(normally vertical or slightly diagonal) depending upon the direction of the stroke. At other times
another more or less round or square-tipped pen was used, which produced strokes with little or
no shading (cf. 4Q249y 1–2 and 4Q249z 41). A change of pen (and/or scribe) can be discerned in
the lower lines of 4Q249 1.’