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‘Atiqot 50 (2005)
ISBN 2948-040X
A Burial Cave with a Greek Inscription and Graffiti at Khirbat el-‘Ein, Judean Shephelah
(pp. 27–36)
Boaz Zissu
Keywords: necropolis, cemetery, Roman period, epigraphy
The cave, arranged along an east–west axis, comprises a courtyard, a vestibule, a burial chamber and an additional room. This plan is characteristic of burial caves dating to the first century CE in Jerusalem and the Judean Shephelah. The entranceway to the burial chamber was blocked by a roll-stone. The doorjambs of the inner section of the entranceway were smoothed and incised with a long Greek inscription that could not be deciphered, but might have had a magical meaning; two
nefashot
—tomb markers that often surmounted burial caves—are also incised on the doorjambs. Three loculi (
kokhim
) were hewn in the burial chamber walls, typical of the late Second Temple period. The meager finds from the cave date its construction to the first century CE. It probably served a Jewish family from nearby Khirbat el-‘Ein, and remained in use during the Bar Kokhba Revolt. After the burial cave ceased to function, a deep bell-shaped cave was carved near the lowest part of the courtyard, possibly during the Byzantine–Early Islamic periods.