Current Issue
Past Issues
Editoral Policy
About Us
Guide to Contributors
Call for Papers
Submission
‘Atiqot 62 (2010)
ISBN 2948-040X
A Burial Cave from the Third–Early Fourth Centuries CE at Iqrit
(pp. 59–96)
Fanny Vitto
Keywords: loculi (Kokhim) cave, primary burials, burial goods, anthropology
A rock-cut chamber-tomb with plain
kokhim
, dating to the Late Roman period, was excavated at the site of Iqrit in Upper Galilee. In the tomb were found 26 coins, made of bronze, silver and billon, complete glass vessels—of them an
askos
-shaped bottle is worth of mention—and gold, silver and bronze jewelry. One of the rings was set with a jasper gem depicting a warrior, apparently personifying Alexander the Great. The cave probably belonged to a family who used it for slightly more than a century, from the end of the second to the early fourth centuries CE. The relatively large number of coins found in the cave attests to the pagan belief of paying the ferryman Charon for crossing the River Styx to the netherworld.