Archæology and the Bible

by George A. Barton

CHAPTER XII

THE TOMBS OF PALESTINE

Burning the Dead. Cave Burials. Cistern Burial. Burial under Menhirs. Earth-graves. Rock-hewn Shaft Tombs. Doorway Tombs. Tombs with a Rolling-stone.

1. Burning the Dead.—As noted in a previous chapter,[215] the cave-dwellers of Gezer burned their dead. The Semitic inhabitants of Palestine did not follow this custom, but buried theirs. At Gezer the caves that had formed the dwellings of the first inhabitants were put by the Semites to various uses. Sometimes they, too, lived in them; sometimes they made cisterns of them; and sometimes they utilized them as places of burial for their dead.

2. Cave Burials.—A cave that became a tomb after the Semitic occupation was the one that had been the crematorium of the pre-Semitic inhabitants.[216] All over the floor of the cave above the burned bones was another stratum of bones that had never been burned. These were scattered over the floor of the cave, and, although they had been much disturbed by rats, it appeared that they belonged to that early type of burial in which the body is placed on its side with the knees drawn up toward the chin. These bodies had apparently been deposited in all parts of the cave. Ranged around the sides of the cave was a series of enclosures marked off from the floor by lines of stones. In these, portions of various skeletons were found. These enclosures seem to have been reservations made for persons of distinction. For a time, therefore, the cave seems to have been used as a general place of burial. In some of the other caves of Gezer evidence was found that they had been used as tombs.[217] Beautiful pottery and alabaster vessels were found with the bones. Wine and possibly food for the dead had been placed in these. Underneath the pottery in one cave a considerable number of scarabs were found, some of them mounted in gold. This must have been, accordingly, the burial place of persons of comparative wealth. Similar cave burials were found by Mackenzie at Beth-shemesh.[218]

Such cave burials as these at once recall Abraham’s purchase of the cave of Machpelah as recorded in Gen. 23. The kind of burial presupposed in that chapter is just that found at Gezer. The mouth of the cave could be closed up and opened at will for later burials. (See Gen. 50:13.)

The custom of placing food or drink or both in the sepulcher was all but universal in Palestine. It is silent testimony to a faith in a kind of after-life. That that life as they conceived it was of a shadowy and an unsatisfactory nature is shown by the references to it in Isa. 14:9-11 and Ezek. 32:22-32.[219] Nevertheless, these evidences that the mourners who stood by every ancient tomb provided food for their loved ones to eat in the after-life is eloquent testimony to the fact that even in that age the loving heart found it impossible to believe that the life of its dear ones had been altogether terminated.

3. Cistern Burial.—Another burial at Gezer that must have been connected with some unusual circumstance led to the deposit of fifteen bodies in a cistern,[220] and a number of spear heads were found with them. The skeletons were all males except one, which was that of a girl about sixteen years old, whose spine had been severed and only the upper part of the skeleton deposited in the cistern; (see [Fig. 229]). The cistern is too deep to favor the supposition that the bodies had been deposited at successive times. Macalister hazards the conjecture that the men died of plague and that the girl was offered as a sacrifice to propitiate the deity. A plague, however, would have attacked women as well as men. Perhaps the men were slain in defending Gezer from the attack of an enemy that had succeeded in severing the body of the girl. The real cause of the tragedy is, however, unknown to us.

4. Burial under Menhirs.—A very old form of burial, still practised by the half-nomadic tribes east of the Jordan, is to place the dead in the earth within one of the prehistoric gilgals or menhirs. How old this form of burial is, it is impossible to tell. It is assumed by some writers that it was practised by the neolithic people who erected these monuments, and who are believed by such writers to have been ancestor worshipers. If, however, these neolithic men were akin to the neolithic cave-dwellers of Gezer, they burned their dead. Another explanation is, accordingly, more probable. All through the history of Palestine the sanctity of certain spots has persisted. A place once considered as holy, if not so regarded by the next wave of conquerors, nevertheless often has enough sanctity clinging to it to make it taboo. No thief will disturb objects left within its precincts, lest the spirit of the place bring disaster upon him. It seems probable that the wandering tribes on the border of the Arabian Desert have utilized the sacred places of these prehistoric men for the burial of their dead, in order that the fear of violating the taboo pertaining to these places may secure the bodies from disturbance. Whatever the reason may be, they still bury their dead in such precincts and place their tribal wasms or marks on such stones.[221]