Besides the kings above enumerated, Manasseh was, according to the book of Chronicles (2 Chron. xxxiii, 20) buried in his own house, which the book of Kings (2 Kings xxi, 18) explains as the "garden of his own house, the garden of Uzza," where his son Anion was burieil, also, it is said, in his own sepulchre (vcr. 26);
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SEPULCHRE
South-east.
Plan of the "Tombs of the Prophets" ou Olivet.
but we have nothinp; that would enable us to indicate where this was; and Ahaz, the wicked king, was, ac- cording to the book of Chronicles (2 Chron. xxviii, 27), "buried in the city, even in Jerusalem, and they brought him not into the sepulchres of the kings of Israel." The fact of these last three kings having been idola- ters, though one reformed, and tlieir having all three been buried apparently in the city, proves what im- portance the Jews attached to the locality of the sepul- chre, but also tends to show that burial within the city, or the enclosure of a dwelling, was not so repulsive to their feelings as is generally supposed. It is just pos- sible that the rock -cut sepulchre under the western wall of the present Church of the Holj' Sepulchre may be the remains of such a cemetery as that in which the wicked kings were buried.
For the sepulchres of the Maccabees, see Modin. For the modern or traditionary "Tombs of the Kings" near Jerusalem, sec below.
3. The " Tombs of the Prophets:'— Tha neighborhood of Jerusalem is thickly studded with tombs, many of them of great antiquity. A succinct but valuable ac- count of them is given in Porter's Hand-book (p. 143 sq.) ; but it is only necessary in this article to refer to two or three of the most celebrated. The only im- portant hypogeum which is wholly Jewish in its ar- rangements, and may consequently belong to an earlier, or to any epoch, is that known as the Tombs of the Prophets in the western flank of the Mount of Olives. See Olivet. " Through a long descentling gallery, the first part of which is winding, we enter a circidar chamber about twenty-four feet in diameter and ten high, having a hole in its roof. From this chamber two parallel galleries, ten feet high and five wide, are carried southwards through the rock for about sixty feet ; a third diverges south-east, extending forty feet. They are connected by two cross galleries in concentric curves, one at their extreme end, the other in the mid- dle. The outer one is 115 feet long and has a range of thirty niches on the level of its floor, radiating out- wards. Two small chambers with similar niches also open into it." This tomb, or series of tombs, has every appearance of having originally been a natural cavern improved by art, and with an external gallery some 1-1(1 feet in extent, into which twenty-seven deep or Jew- Fif ide of the Liii
isb loculi open. Oth- er chambers and lo- culi have been com- menced in other parts, and in the passages there are spaces where many other graves could have been lo- cated.all which woukl tend to show that it had been disused be- fore com])leted, and consecpiently was very modern. But, be this as it may, it has no architectural mould- ings, no sarcophagi or shallow loculi, noth- ing to indicate a for- eign origin, and may therefore be consid- ered, if not an early, at least as the most essentially Jewish of the sepulchral exca- vations in this local- ity— every other im- portant sepulchral ex- cavation being adorn- ed with architectural features and details betraying most un- mistakably their Greek or Roman origin, and fixing
their date, consequently, as subsequent to that of the Maccabees; or, in other words, like every other detail of pre-Christian architecture in Jerusalem, they belong to the 140 j'ears that elapsed from the advent of Pom- pey till the destruction of the city by Titus.
4. The " Tombs of the Kii>i/s" — The most important of the great groups in the vicinity of Jerusalem is that known as Kebur es- Sultan, or the Royal Caverns, so called because of their magnificence, and also because that name is applied to them by Josephus, who, in de- scribing the third wall, mentions them {cnrtiXaia jSa- (TiXiKa [ir«;-, v, 4, 2]). By some, however, thej' are identified with the Momtment of Herod {ibid. 3, '2; 12, 2) ; by others, as Robinson and Porter, with the tomb of Helena, the widowed queen of Monobazus, king of Adiabene. She became a proselyte to Judaism, and fixed her residence at Jerusalem, where slie relieved many of the poor during the famine i)redicted by Aga- bus in the days of Claudius Ciesar (Acts xi, 28), and built for herself a tomb, as we learn from Josephus (Ant. XX, 2, 1 sq.; 4,3; War, v, 2, 2; 4,2; Pansan. viii, 16, 5; Euseb. ii, 12; Jerome, Kpit. Paulm). See Jkiiusali;m. Into the question of the origin of these tombs it is, however, unuecessarj' to enter; but their structure claims our attention. Thev are excavated out of
ihc li iiib>, 1 1 ilie Kmgs."
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SEPULCHRE
the rock. The traveller passes through a low arched doorway into a court ninety-two feet long by eiglity- seven wide. On the western side is a vestibule or porch thirty-nine feet wide. The open front was sup- ported by two columns in the middle. Along the front extend a deep frieze and cornice, the former richly or- namented. At the southern side of the vestibule is the entrance to the tomb. The architecture exhibits the same ill-understood Koman-Doric arrangements as are found in all these tombs, mixed with bunches of grapes. which first appear on Maccabajan coins, and foliage which is local and peculiar, and, so far as anything is known elsewliere, might be of any age. Its connection, however, with that of the tombs of Jehoshaphat and the Judges fixes it to the same epoch. The entrance doorway of this tomb is below the level of the ground, and concealed, so far as anything can be said to be which is so architecturally adorned; and it is remark- able as the only instance of this quasi-concealment at Jerusalem. It is closed by a very curious and elabo- rate contrivance of a rolling stone, often described, but very Llumsily answering its pur- jwse. This, also, is charac- teristic of its age, as we know from Pausanias that the struc- tural marble monument of queen Helena of Adiabene \\as remarkable for a similar piece of misplaced ingenni- tv. Within, the tomb con- Eollnitr Stone it the Dooi Mstsof a vestibule or entrance- of the _" Tombs of tlie hall about twenty feet square, '^'"S*- from which three other square