RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Cemeteries
Elsewhere in the country, even down to the fifth and sixth centuries, the original character of both single and family tombs was preserved.
Syria offers a considerable number both of ancient church buildings and of ancient cemeteries, both above and below ground, and a type which is a combination of the two, at once hollowed out in the rock and built over above. The openings to the subterranean burial-places are either vertical or horizontal. In the former ease they are covered by a stone like the lid of a sarcophagus, or sometimes by a roof with columns or a 2. Syria, complete chamber; in the latter, a door leads directly into them by a flight of steps, or one passes first through a portico or anteroom. The inner space, usually rectangular, has in most cases two or three hollowed-out and vaulted graves, each along one wall; six is the largest number cited by De Vogue\ The coffinshaped place for the body is generally covered, not by a slab, but by a heavy stone shaped like the arched sarcophagus-lids. The principal difference between the known Christian burial-places of Syria (mostly fifth century, to judge from the inscriptions) and their pagan prototypes is the almost universal choice of the arcosoliurn form among those used in pre-Christian times.
The cemeteries of Mesopotamia seem to correspond in their main features to those of central Syria, including structures wholly or partially above ground and excavations in the rock. An important necropolis is that outside the walls of Constantina in northern Mesopotamia, above ground, containing nearly 2,000 graves. The subterranean burial-places seem to have been mostly connected with ancient stone-quarries, and some of them are more extensive than the similar ones in Syria, though numerous smaller ones have been found.
The best-known early Christian cemeteries in Asia Minor are in the extreme southeastern provinces of Isauria and Cilicia, of which the former had the good fortune to be explored by L. Duchesne. Near the ancient Seleucia (now Selefkeh) are numerous rectangular chambers at irregular distances from each other, excavated in soft limestone and entered by doors. They contain from three to ten graves apiece, somewhat like arcosolia, but standing out further from the walls. Rock-chambers and isolated arcosolia are also found near the village of Libas, and many isolated coffins were scattered around three basilicas at Mout, the ancient Claudiopolis, as well as graves dug straight down and covered with stone slabs. Anazarbe in Cilicia has a large necropolis dating from a late
3. Mesopotamia.
4. Asia Minor.
period of Christian antiquity, in which both rock-chambers and rock-coffins are found, as also at Elaeussa. A still larger cemetery was probably that of Corykos (now Ghorigos), where chambers are excavated in the rock, sometimes in several lines one above another. These seem to have been all for families or small groups. All about the neighboring hills are large isolated sarcophagi with saddle-back covers. In Pisidia, at
Termessos, there are burial-chambers which the crosses show to have been Christian. Since Armenia has Christian rock-tombs at Arabissos (now Yarpuz), it is not unlikely that the intervening province of Cappadocia will yet furnish some examples. It is possible that the lack of interest hitherto shown in the Christian cemeteries of Asia Minor is due to the close resemblance between them and the pagan burial-places; and evidence is not lacking to support the theory that a considerable number which have heretofore been classed as pagan will, upon further investigation, be proved to be Christian.
Accurate modern scientific investigation of the Christian sepulchral remains of Egypt has borne no proportion to the importance of the northern part of that country in the early Church, and the question must be here discussed principally from the evidences to be found in Alexandria. Among the catacombs to which access was gained in the nineteenth century the best known is that discovered in 1858, lying near the Serapeum in the southwestern part of the ancient city. A flight of steps leads down into a square anteroom, with a semicircular niche adjoining it on the west side, and two burial-chambers extending out from it. One of these is long and narrow, vaulted above, and containing thirty-two tombs of the
5. Egypt, kind into which the body is pushed
head or feet first. The other, smaller and square, has three hollowed-out graves, one oa each side, and another sunk in the floor. That these were used by Christians is demonstrated bypaintings and inscriptions, though more recent in* date than the construction. Neroutsos, the most thorough student of the Alexandrian catacombs, mentions another, discovered in 1876, which he believes to be Christian. In this the anteroom resembles a Greek or Roman cedicula, though the capitals of the columns are decorated with lotusflowers instead of acanthus-leaves. The oblong burial-chamber leading out of this has on three sides rows of graves of the kind described, at right angles with the wall, one above another, to the number of fifty-four. These cemeteries were probably family burial-places, serving for more than one generation. The pagans and Jews of Alexandria undoubtedly began with this system, but there is reason to believe that the Christians did not always adhere to it.
Cyrenaica contains a great number of burialplaces hollowed out in the rock, both pagan and Christian, especially in the old capital city; but they have not been explored with sufficient completeness and accuracy to allow the formation of definite conclusions. As far as can be determined, most of the burial-places of Cyrene are excavated in the side of perpendicular cliffs near the city. Only a few of them give positive evidence of Christian use, though there is reason to think that these are not all. A great variety of methods appears, including movable and immovable
6. Cyre- t sarcophagi, arcosolia, loculi,
graves sunk in the floor, and long, narrow holes in the cliff in which the dead were laid one above another, separated by horizontal slabs.
Cemeteries