50 FT
Plan of the "Tomb of St. James." are several apartments, which in another locality we might be justified in calling a rock-cut monastery ap- propriated to sepulchral purposes, but in Jerusalem we know so little that it is necessary to pause before ap- plying an}' such designation. In the 'rear of all is an apartment, apparently unfinished, with three shallow loculi, meant for the reception of sarcophagi, and so in- dicating a post-Jewish date for the whole, or at least for that part, of the excavation.
(3.) The remaining or so-called Tomb of Absalom is somewhat larger, the base being about twenty-one feet square in plan, and probably twenty-three or twen- ty-four to the top of the cornice. Like the other, it is of the Roman-Ionic order, surmounted by a cornice of Ionic type; but between the pillars and the cornice a frieze, unmistakably of the Roman-Doric order, is in- troduced, so Roman as to be in itself quite sufficient to fix its epoch. It is by no means clear whether it had originallj- a pyramidical top like its neighbor. The existence of a square blocking above the cornice would lead us to suspect it had not; at all events, either at the time of its excavation or subsequently this was re- moved, and the present very peculiar termination erect- ed, raising its height to over sixty feet. At the time this was done a chamber was excavated in the base, we must assume for sepulchral purposes, though how a body could be introduced through the narrow hole above the cornice is by no means clear, nor, if inserted,
Aiiirle of the "Tomb of Absalom,
SEPULCHRE
562
SEPULCHRE
how disposed of in the two verj' narrow loculi that ex- ist. The great interest of this excavation is, that im- mediately in rear of the monolith we do tind just such a sepulchral cavern as we should expect. It is called the Tomb of Jehoshaphat, with about the same amount of discrimination as governed the nomenclature of the others, but is now closed by the rubbish and stones thrown by the pious at the Tomb of the Undutiful Son, and consequently its internal arrangements are un- known ; but externally it is crowned by a pediment of considerable beauty, and in the same style as that of the Tombs of the Judges, mentioned above — show- ing that these two, at least, are of the same age, and that this one, certainly, must have been subsequent to the excavation of the monolith ; so that we may feel perfectly certain that the two groups are of one age, even if it should not be thought quite clear what that age may be. See Absalom's Pillar.
7. Other Grceco- Roman Tombs. — Besides the tombs above enumerated, there are around Jerusalem, in the valleys of Hinnom and Jehoshaphat, and on the plateau to the north, a number of remarkable rock-cut sepul- chres, with more or less architectural decoration, suffi- cient to enable us to ascertain that they are all of nearly the same age, and to assert with very tolerable confi- dence that the epoch to which they belong must be be- tween the introduction of Koman influence and the de- struction of the city b}' Titus. The proof of this would be easy if it were not that, like everything Jewish, there is a remarkable absence of inscriptions which can be assumed to be original. The excavations in the Valley of Hinnom with Greek inscriptions are compar- atively modern, the inscriptions being all of Christian import, and of such a nature as to render it extremely doubtful whether the chambers were sepulchral at all, and not rather the dwellings of ascetics, and originally intended to be used for this purpose. These, however, are neither the most important nor the most architect- ural— indeed, none of those in that valley are so remark- able as those in the other localities just enumerated. The most important of those in the Valley of Hinnom is that known as the " Retreat-place of the Apostles." It is an unfinished excavation of extremely late date, and many of the others look much more like dwellings for the living than resting-places of the dead.
In the village of Siloam there is a monolithic cell of singularly Egyptian aspect, which De Saulcy {Voyage autoiir de la Mer Morte, ii, 306) assumes to be a chapel of Solomon's Egyptian wife. It is probably of very much more modern date, and is more Assyrian than Egyptian in character; but as he is probably quite cor- rect in stating that it is not sepulchral, it is only neces- sary to mention it here in order that it may not be con- founded with those that are so. It is the more worthy of remark, as one of the great difficulties of the subject arises from travellers too readily assuming that every cutting in the rock must be sepulchral. It may be so in Egypt, but it certainly was not so at Cyrene or Petra, where many of the excavations were either temples or monastic establishments; and it certainly was not univer- sally the case at Jerusalem, though our information is fre- quentlj' too scanty to enable us always to discriminate ex- actly to which class the cutting in the rock may belong.
The same remarks as are above made respecting the "Tombs of the .Tudges" apply to the tomb without a name, and merely called "a Jewish tomb," in their neighborhood, with bevelled facets over its facade, but with late Roman-Doric details at its angles, sufficient to indicate its epoch ; but there is nothing else about these tombs requiring especial mention (see Thomson, Land and Book, ii, 492).