An arch, G, pierced in the side of the chamber, is the opening to the loculus; and the lower margin of this arch is two feet above the floor of the chamber. But at the bottom of this arch a sunk receptacle (as at H) is formed, eighteen inches in depth, to receive the body, as shewn by the section; and herein lies the principal difference between this sepulchral chamber and Schultz's second class of Jerusalem tombs. (Fig. B, above). They each have their antechamber and recessed loculi; but in the latter class there is no hollow or chest sunk in the bottom of the arch, so that the body was simply deposited thereon. In the present example, as no ledge appears at the back or sides of the loculus to afford a resting-place for a horizontal slab to cover the bodies, it may be inferred that they were left uncovered; and that the stone-door of the outer chamber was the only means by which the sepulchre was secured, unless indeed the vertical arches of the loculi were closed with masonry. The arch of the loculus opposite to the door is narrower than the others, on account of the dimensions of the apartment. But as the cavity expands behind the opening, it is still long enough to receive the corpse of a full-grown man, but not if enclosed in a coffin. This form of a loculus occurs in various other districts. Texier' has given drawings of a rock-chamber at Nacoleia, in Asia Minor, the general arrangement of which is similar to this, but it has no vestibule, and the rude ornament of the doorway shews it to belong to a very early period; while another sepulchre at the same place, with a similar doorway, has stone couches 1 Texier, Déscription de l'Asie Mineur, Pl. 57. against the walls in lieu of these arched recesses and square chests of stone. He has also given engravings of another sepulchral excavation at Nacoleia, with these arched recesses, the front of which has a deep portico with rude columns. At Urgur a chamber occurs which has on each of three sides an oblong rectangular opening, about eighteen inches from the floor, instead of an arch. The one opposite to the door is provided with a deeply sunk cavity, like those under the arches of fig. Y, above. But the lateral openings have only a shallow sinking at the bottom of their recesses. A rude early portico and atrium, of slightly Egyptian character, is in front of this cavern. The arched recess, with the hollow chest or stone coffin below, (as in figs. X, Y, Z) abounds in the Christian catacombs both of Rome and of Naples, where it appears to have been reserved for the richer or more distinguished persons. The fortunate discovery of an inscription attached to one of these3, in which the monument itself is mentioned, has taught us that its proper name was ARCOSOLIUM. In these, however, the cavity is covered by an horizontal slab, which is supported by a narrow ledge at the back and sides, and rests in front upon the front wall of the loculus1. * Texier, Pls. 92, 93. * The inscription is preserved in the pallazzo Rondanini at Rome (Mon. Prim. d. Arti Christiani, p. 85.) The pagans employed the word solium for the area, or sarcophagus, in which they enclosed the dead body, and the ChrisLans applied the same term to the chest in which relics of their martyrs were kept under an altar. (Ib. p. 96.) Solium is also a bath, which a sarcophagus resembles. The compound word Arcosolium very fitly represents the peculiar form of sepulchral monuments to which it was applied. Mr Wilde, in his Narrative of a Voyage to Madeira, &c. (Dublin, 1840, Vol. 11. p. 123) has paid particular Its use was not confined to the Christians; for in the sepulchres of the Villa Corsina, near Rome, there are some examples, some of which, it is true, have the solium occupied by cinerary urns', but in others it is plainly intended for an entire corpse. It will of course be understood that the difference attention to the forms and arrangements of sepulchres; for which his professional and scientific studies as a surgeon seem to have given him an especial predilection. In his journey from Tyre to Sidon, he explored the tombs, represented in figs. X, Y, Z. He describes them as an extensive series of catacombs, cut in the face of the white sandstone rock. His view of the interior of one of these chambers exactly corresponds to Mr Scoles' architectural drawings; but Mr Wilde says, "The moment I entered the first of these tombs (exhibited in the engraving), I was struck not only with the resemblance, but the exact similarity they bore to the Egyptian catacombs, especially to those of Sackara and Alexandria. Like them, they have a low square doorway, opening into a chamber, varying in size from ten to fifteen feet square, containing three horizontal sarcophagi, or places for bodies, one on each side; the doorway, or entrance, fills up the fourth side, the whole carved out of the solid rock, which like that of Egypt is soft, and easily excavated." Of the catacombs of Sackara he says, "This tomb, to which the Arabs give the name of Bergami, is one of vast extent and matchless elegance of design and finish; all carved with the greatest precision out of the solid rock. Its outer hall or apartment is of great size, and adorned with massive pillars on either hand. Off the sides of this portion of the tomb are a series of small chambers, their walls covered with hieroglyphics: in form they are for the most part square, and have in general three niches for the bodies; one opposite to the door, and one on either side. Two square wells lead down to a great depth into a lower tier of sepulchral chambers, similarly coated with phonetic writing." (Vol. 1. p. 372.) Upon comparing the accounts of different travellers and writers, I cannot, however, satisfy myself how far the similarity of the Egyptian loculus to the Syrian is to be interpreted. The question respecting which I should be exceedingly grateful for exact information is this: Does the Arcosolium, in its exact form and arched opening, as in the Christian catacombs of Rome, and in the Syrian tomb of the above woodcuts, exist in the tombs of Egypt? Vide Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, Vol. 11. 2nd series, p. 397; Pococke, Vol. 1. p. 54; Clarke, Vol. III. p. 286, 4to edition. Clarke says distinctly of the small chambers of the Alexandrian catacomb, that "each contains on either side of it, except that of the entrance, a soros for the reception of a mummy :" these chambers are about nine feet square. 1 See Bartoli, Ant. Sepolcri, tav. 9, 11, 13. between the arcosolium and a sarcophagus placed in a niche or isolated, is simply that in the former the solium is a part of the structure, very often indeed part of the solid rock, and therefore it shews its front only; but the sarcophagus is an isolated chest, and often moveable, and has three finished sides at least, and when not placed against the wall, is ornamented on four sides. The arcosolium is plainly the prototype of the mediæval monuments that are constructed in the side-walls of churches. In the Etruscan sepulchres there is no example of a genuine "arcosolium." When a sarcophagus is employed, it is always placed against the walls of the apartment, or isolated, but never fitted into a recess either arched or square, and the same may be said of the stone-couches. But recesses, both arched and rectangular, without the hollow chest, are sunk in the sides of the Etruscan chambers, and in the vertical faces of rock, for the reception of bodies2. * The descriptions which travellers give (without drawings) are so ambiguous, that I cannot affirm that the recess always occurs in the Jewish tombs. Schultz seems to imply this in the description I have quoted above, in which case he must be supposed to mean that the tombs near Jerusalem in which the recess does not occur, belonged to foreigners. Doubdan, in the following passage, clearly states that the body was either deposited in a stone chest, sufficiently deep to admit of a horizontal cover, or else simply laid upon the surface of a kind of altar left in the rock, and hollowed about an inch. But he says nothing about the recess in the floor of which these receptacles were formed; and similarly Clarke, Vol. 11. p.252, 4to edition, comparing the tombs of Telmessus with those of the Hill of Offence, south of Jerusalem, is equally ambiguous. I must leave this question to be answered by actual observers; for as the tombs of Asia Minor are of both kinds, as already stated, it is impossible to say which he alludes to. The drawing of one of these tombs in the Hill of Offence, which is given by Zuallardo, and copied by Cotovicus, represents a simple rectangular loculus, hollowed in the side of the apartment, like those of the ordinary Christians in the Roman catacombs. But more of this below. "Some of these tombs (on the Besides the ordinary kinds of single chambers which Schultz has explained, there are at Jerusalem many of a more complicated and remarkable construction, which have been described with more or less precision by travellers. They resemble the simple chambers in the forms of their receptacles (or loculi) for the dead, and differ from them only in consisting of a number of apartments connected in various ways by passages and staircases, instead of having merely a single chamber with its vestibule; and they are moreover distinguished by an ornamental façade of architecture, the style of which is, in them all, Greek, and often with a strange intermixture of Egyptian principles, the North of Jerusalem) consist of simple "Les Juifs, au moins les plus riches et considerables, avoient coustume de choisir dès leur vivant le lieu de leur sepulture, qui estoit pour l'ordinaire un petit cabinet ou caveau, qu'ils faisoient tailler à la pointe du ciseau dans quelque roche vive, de la grandeur d'un corps de six à sept pieds en quarré, et l'entrée fort petite. Dans ce caveau ou cabinet ils faisoient tailler à costé et de la mesme roche un cercueil, creusé avec un petit relais à un bout, pour hausser un peu la teste, de la mesme longueur de six à sept pieds, et environ deux de largeur, où ayant mis le corps mort enveloppé de son suaire et couvert d'une table de pierre, ils bouchoient la porte d'une autre grande pierre qu'ils faisoient sceller avec du ciment, et l'appuyoient avec une autre plus petite. "Les autres se contentoient, au lieu de cercueil, de laisser un banc de la mesme roche en forme d'autel, creusé seulement d'un poulce, sur le quel on estendoit le corps, sans etre couvert d'une autre pierre. Voilà la forme de la plus grande partie des sepulchres de ce pays-là, et particulièrement de celuy de Nostre Seigneur," &c. Doubdan, le Voyage de la Terre Sainte, p. 65, 2nd ed. 1661. (He began his travels Nov. 25th, 1651.) |