apartments open, each surrounded by deep loculi. These again possess a peculiarity not known in any other tomb about Jerusalem, of having a square apartment either beyond the head of the loculus or on one side: as, for in- stance, A A have their inner chambers, a' a', within, but B and B, at b' b', on one side. What the purpose of these was it is difficult to guess, but, at all events, it is not Jewish. But perhaps the most remarkable peculi- arity of the hypogeum is the sarcophagus chamber d, in which two sarcopliagi were found, one of which was
Plan of the "Tombs of the Judges."
with ledges in front to give convenient access, and to support the stones that closed them ; the lower flush with the ground : the whole, consequently, so essential- ly Jewish that it might be of any age if it were not for its distance from the town, and its architectural char- acter. The latter, as before stated, is identical with that of the Tomb of Jehoshaphat, and has nothing Jew- ish about it. It might, of course, be difficult to prove
Parade of the
mbs of the Judges."
this, as we know so little of what .Jewish architecture really is; but we do know that the pediment is more essentially a Greek invention than any other part of brought home by De Saulcy, and is now in the Louvre. ; their architecture, and was introduced at least not pre- 5. The " Tombs of the Judf/es." — The hvpogeum now | viously to the age of the CypselidiC, and this peculiar known by this name is one of the most remarkable of , form not till long afterwards, and this particular exam- the catacombs around Jerusalem, containing about sixty pie not till after an age when the debased Koman of deep loculi, arranged in three stories; the upper stories the Tomb of Absalom had become possible.
6. Tombs in the Valley of Jehosha- phat. — There are three conspicuous sepulchres here, which we briefiy describe in the or- der in which they occur, beginning at the south. See Je- hoshaphat, Val- lp:y of.
(l.)The so-called " Tomb of Zecha- riah," said to have been constructed iai honor of Zechari- ah, who was slain "between the tem- ple and the altar" in the reign of Joash ( 2 Chron. xxiv, 21 ; Matt, xxiii, 35), is held in great veneration b)' the Jews. It is Plan of the "Tombs of the Kings." doubtful, however,
SEPULCHRE
561
SEPULCHRE
"Tomb of Zech.iiiah." whether it be a tomb at all, and the style of architect- ure can scarcel}' be earlier than onr rera. It bears a considerable resemblance to the so-called Tomb of Ab- salom, the northernmost of the three. It consists of a square solid basement, measuring; eighteen feet six inches each way, and twenty feet high to the top of the cornice. On each face are four engaged Ionic col- umns between antre, and these are surmounted, not by an Egyptian cornice, as is usually asserted, but by one of purely Assyrian type, such as is found at Khorsabad. As the Ionic or voluted order came also from Assyria, this examjile is, in lact, a purer specimen of the Ionic order than any found in Europe, where it was always used by the Greeks with a quasi-Doric cornice. Notwithstanol- ing this, in the form of the volutes— the egg- and -dart moulding beneath, and every detail — it is so distinctly Roman that it is impossible to assume Scctiuii ()i ^tylo- tiiat \i belongs to an earlier age than bate ;it Knor- , ,. , ■ . ,i .1 1
sabad. f"''f "' their influence. Above the
cornice is a pyramid rising at rather a sharp angle, and hewn, like all the rest, out of the solid rock. It may further be reinarked that only the out- ward face, or that fronting Jerusalem, is completely fin- ished, the other three being only blocked out (l)e Saul- cy, ii, 303), a circiunstance that would lead us to suspect that the works may have been interrupted by the fall of Jerusalem, or some such catastrophe ; and this may possibly also account for there being no sepulchre on its rear, if such be really the case. To call this building a tomb is evidently a misnomer, as it is absolutely solid — hewn out of the living rock by cutting a passage around it. It has no external chambers, nor even the .semblance of a doorway. Fnim what is known of the explorations carried on by M. Kenan about Byljlus, we should expect that the tomb, properly so called, would be an excavation in the passage behind the monolith — but none such has been found (probald}' it was never looked for) — and that this monolith is the stele or indi- cator of that fact. If it be so, it is very singular, though very Jewish, that any one should take the trouble to carve out such a monument without putting an inscrip- tion or symbol on it to mark its destination or to tell in whose honor it was erected.
(2.) The middle tomb of this group, called that of St. James, is of a very different character. It consists of a veranda with two Doric pillars in antis, which may be characterized as belonging to a very late Greek or- der rather than a Roman example. Behind this screen IX.— N N