SEPULCHRAL CAVES, &c. In the twenty-third chapter of Genesis, and the nineteenth verse, we find the phrase "the cave of the field of Machpelah." This chapter affords the earliest notice of the practice, which was formerly very prevalent in the East, of depositing the dead in natural or artificial caves, great numbers of which are still to be found in Palestine, Syria, Egypt, and Persia. In the mountainous country of southern Palestine there are abundance of natural caves in the rocks, which might easily be formed into commodious sepulchral vaults; and where such natural caves were wanting, sepulchres were hewn in the rock for such families as were able to incur the necessary expense; for this was the mode of sepulchre decidedly preferred by those who could obtain it. The arrangement and extent of these caves varied with circumstances. Those in the declivity of a mountain were often cut in horizontally; but to others there was usually a descent by steps from the surface. The roofs of the vaults are commonly arched; and sometimes, in the more spacious vaults, supported by colonnades. These rocky chambers are generally spacious, being obviously family vaults, intended to receive several dead bodies. Niches, about six or seven feet deep, are usually cut in the sides of the vault, each adapted to receive a single corpse; but in some vaults, small rooms are cut in the same manner; and in others, stone slabs of the same length, are fixed horizontally against the walls, or cut out of the rock, one above another, serving as shelves on which the corpses were deposited: in others, however, the floor itself is excavated for the reception of the dead, in compartments of various depths, and in the shape of a coffin. Some of the bodies were placed in stone coffins, provided with sculptured lids; but such sarcophagi were by no means in general use; the bodies, when wound up in the grave-clothes, being usually deposited without any sort of coffin or sarcophagus. The vaults are always dark, the only opening being the narrow entrance, which is usually closed by a large stone, rolled to its mouth; although some of a superior description are shut by stone doors, hung in the same manner as the doors of houses, by pivots turning in holes, in the architrave above, and in the threshold below. Some of these vaults consist of several chambers, one within another, connected by passages. The innermost chambers are usually deeper than the exterior, with a descent of several steps. When there is more than one chamber, the outermost seems to have a sort of anteroom, the walls being seldom occupied with sepulchral niches or shelves. This cave of Machpelah became, after the purchase by Abraham, the family sepulchre of the Hebrew patriarchs; and it is reasonable to conclude that it was of superior size, and contained more than one apartment. The Spanish Jew, Benjamin of Tudela, visited the place about six hundred and fifty years ago; and as his account is precise and interesting, we quote it from "Purchas, his SEPULCHRAL CAVES, ETC. 17 Pilgrimes," 1625:-"I came to Hebron, seated in a plaine; for Hebron, the ancient metropolitan citie, stood upon an hill, but it is now desolate. But in the valley there is a field, wherein there is a duplicitie, that is, as it were, two little valleyes, and there the citie is placed; and there is an huge temple there, called Saint Abraham, and that place was the synagogue of the lewes, at what time the country was possessed by the Ismaelites. But the Gentiles, who afterwards obtayned and held the same, built sixe sepulchres in the temple, by the names of Abraham, Sara, Rebecca, Iacob, and Lia [Leah]. And the inhabitants now tell the pilgrimes that they are the monuments of the patriarkes; and great summes of money are offered there. But surely, to any Iew coming thither, and offering the porters a reward, the cave is shewed, with the iron gate opened, which from antiquitie remayneth yet there. And a man goeth down with a lampe-light into the first cave, where nothing is found, nor also in the second, until he enter the third, in which there are the sixe monuments, the one right over against the other; and each of them are engraven with characters, and distinguished by the names of every one of them after this manner: Sepulchrum Abraham patris nostri, super quem pax sit;' and so the rest after the same example. And a lampe perpetually burneth in the cave, day and night; the officers of the temple continually ministering oyle for the maintenance thereof. Also, in the self-same cave, there are tuns full of the bones of the ancient Israelites, brought thither by the families of Israel, which even until this day remayne in the self-same place." This curious account agrees pretty well with the above general description. The word "Machpelah" means double, applied rather to the field containing the cave than to the cave itself. Benjamin's mention of the two valleys forming, as Purchas translates, "the field of duplicity," explains the application which has perplexed Calmet and others. Sandys, who was there early in the seventeenth century, and who describes the valley of Hebron as "the most pregnant and pleasant valley that the eye ever beheld," mentions the "goodly temple" built by the emperess Helena, the mother of Constantine, and afterward changed into a mosque, as a place of much resort to Moslem pilgrims. John Sanderson was there in the summer of 1601, and the account he gives agrees, as far as it goes, with that of the Spanish Jew; but access to the cave was more restricted than it seems to have been in the time of the latter. He says:- "Into this tombe not any are suffered to enter, but at a square hole, through a thick wall, they may discern a little light of a lamp. The lewes do their ceremonies of prayer there without. The Moores and Turkes are permitted to have a little more light, which is at the top, where they let down the oyle for the lampe; the lampe is a very great one, continually burning." For upward of a century, only two or three Europeans have been able, either by daring or bribery, to obtain access to the mosque and cave. Ali Bey, who passed as a Mussulman, has given a description of it; but his account is so incompatible with all others, and with the reports of the Turks, that it is difficult to admit of its accuracy. According to all other statements, the sepulchre is a deep and spacious cavern, cut out of the solid rock; the opening to which is in the centre of the mosque, and is seldom entered even by Moslems; but Ali Bey seems to describe each separate tomb as in a distinct room, on a level of the floor of the mosque. These rooms have their entrances guarded by iron gates, and by wooden doors plated with silver, with bolts and padlocks of the same metal. He says:- "All the sepulchres of the patriarchs are covered with rich carpets of green silk, magnificently embroidered with gold; those of their wives are red, embroidered in like manner. The sultans of Constantinople furnish these carpets, which are renewed from time to time. I counted nine, one over the other, upon the sepulchre of Abraham. The rooms also which contain the tombs are covered with rich carpets." We can only reconcile this with the other statements by supposing that the Turks have put these monuments upon the level of the floor, immediately over the supposed resting-places of the patriarchs in the cave underneath; and that, instead of conducting them into the crypt, these tombs above ground are shown to ordinary visiters. ENGRAVED ROCKS. WADY MOKATTAH is a valley entering Wady Sheikh, and bordering on the upper regions of the Sinai mountains. It extends for about three hours' march, and in most places its rocks present abrupt cliffs, twenty or thirty feet high. From these cliff's large masses have separated and lie at the bottom in the valley. The cliffs and rocks are thickly covered with inscriptions, which are continued, at intervals of a few hundred paces only, for at least the distance of two hours and a half. Burckhardt says, that to copy all of them would occupy a skilful draughtsman six or eight days. The inscriptions are very rudely executed, sometimes with large letters, at others with small, and seldom with straight lines. The characters appear to be written from right to left; and although not cut deep, an instrument of metal must have been required, as the rock is of considerable hardness. Some of them are on rocks at a height of twelve or fifteen feet, and must have required a ladder to ascend to them. The characters are not known. The superior of the Franciscans, who visited the place in 1722, observes, Although we had among us men who understood the Arabian, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Coptic, Latin, Armenian, Turkish, English, Illyrian, German, and Bohemian languages, there was not one of us who had the slightest knowledge of the characters engraved in these hard rocks with great labor, in a country where there is nothing to be had either to eat or drink. Hence it is probable that these characters contained some profound secrets, |