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riau i-f the Mo; Hebron.
the church or mosque which now stands above the cave was erected; but there is no great reason for doubting that it is a Byzantine church erected there between the age of Constantine and that of Justinian. From such in- dications as can be gathered, it seems of the later period. On its floor are sarcophagi purporting to be those of the patriarchs; but, as is usual in Eastern tombs, they are only cenotaphs representing those that stand below, and which are esteemed too sa- cred for the vulgar to ap- proach. Though it is much more easy of access, it is al- most as difficult to ascertain the age of the wall that encloses the sacred precincts of these tombs. From the account of Josephus (\Var, iv, 7), it does not seem to have existed in his day, or he surely would have men- tioned it; and such a citadel could hardh'^ fail to have been of warlike importance in those troublous times. Besides this, we do not know of any such enclosure en- circling any tombs or sacred place in Jewish times, nor can we conceive any motive for so secluding these graves. There are not any architectural mouldings about this wall which would enable an archieologist to approximate its date; and if the bevelling is assumed to be a .Jewish arrangement (wliich is very far from being exclusively the case), on the other hand it may be contended that no buttressed wall of Jewish masonry exists anywhere. There is, in fact, nothing known with sufficient exactness to decide the (juestion, but the prob- abilities certainly tend towards a Christian or Saracenic origin for the whole structure, both internally and ex- ternally. See Maciu'elak.
For Joseph's Tomb and liacheVs Tomb, see those ar- ticles respectively.
Aaron died on the summit of Mount Hor (Numb, xx, 28; xxxiii, 30), and we are led to infer he was buried there, though it is not so stated; and we have no de-
tails of his tomb which would lead us to suppose that anything existed there earlier than the Jlohammedan Kubr that now crowns the hill overlooking I'ctra, and it is, at the same time, extremely doubtful whether that is the Mount Hor where the high-priest died. See Hor.
Moses died in the plains of Moab (Dent, xxxiv, 6), and was buried there, " but no man knoweth his sepul- chre to this day,'' which is a singular utterance, as being the only instance in the Old Test, of a sepulchre being concealed, or of one being admitted to be unknown. See Nebo.
Joshua was buried in his own inheritance in Timnath- serah (Josh, xxiv, 30), and Samuel in his own house at Ramah (1 Sam. xxv, 1), an expression which we may probably interpret as meaning in the garden attached to his house, as it is scarcely probable it would be the dwelling itself. We know, however, so little of the feelings of the Jews of that age on the subject that it is by no means improbable that it may have been in a chamber or loculus attached to the dwelling, and which, if closed by a stone carefully cemented into its place, would have prevented any annoj-ance from the circum- stance. Joab (1 Kings ii, 34) was also buried "in his own house in the wilderness." In fact, it appears that from the time when Abraham established the burj-ing- place of his family at Hebron till the time when David fixed that of his family in the city which bore his name, the Jewish rulers had no fixed or favorite place of sepul- ture. Each was buried on his own property, or where he died, without much caring either for the sanctity or convenience of the place chosen.
2. Sepulchre of David. — Of the twenty-two kings of Judah who reigned at Jerusalem from 1048 to 590 B.C., eleven, or exactly one half, were buried in one hypo- geum in the " city of David." The names of the kings so lying together were David, Solomon, Eehoboam, Abi- jah, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Ahaziah, Amaziah. Jotham, Hez- ekiah, and Josiah, together with the good priest .Jehoi- ada. Of all these it is merely said that they were buried in " the sepulchres of their fathers" or " of the kings" in the city of David, except of two — Asa and Hezekiah. Of the first it is said (2 Chron. xvi, 14), " they buried him in his own sepulchres which he had made for himself in the city of David, and laid him in the bed [loculus?], which was filled with sweet odors, and divers spices prepared by the apothecaries' art : and they made a very great burning for him." It is not quite clear, however, whether this applies to a new chamber attached to the older sepulchre, or to one en- tirely distinct, though in the same neighborhood. Of Hezekiah it is said (xxxii, 33), they buried him in "the chiefest [or highest] of the sepulchres of the sons of David," as if there were several apartments in the hypo- geum, though it may merely be that they excavated for him a chamber above the others, as we find frequently done in Jewish sepulchres. Two more of these kings (.fehoram and Joash) were buried also in the city of David, "but not in the sepulchres of the kings;" the first because of the sore diseases of which he died (xxi, 20) ; the second apparently in consequence of his dis- astrous end (xxiv, 25); and one king, Uzziah (xxvi, 23), was buried with his fathers in the "field of the burial of the kings," because he was a leper. All this evinces the extreme care the Jews took in the selection of the burying-places of their kings, and the imiiortance they attached to the record. It should also be borne in mind that the highest honor which could be bestowed on the good priest Jehoiada (xxiv, 16) was that "they buried him in the city of David arnong the kings, be- cause he had done good in Israel, both towards God and towards his house."