Odd Tomb Out

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The mystery deepens. As if the perplexing graves at Qumran were not enough, the same unusual type of tomb has now been discovered in southern Jerusalem. None of these tombs looks remotely like the typical Jerusalem tomb from the same period, called the Second Temple period (first century B.C.E. to first century C.E.).

More than 800 Jerusalem tombs of the standard variety have been found in the city, almost all in caves.¹ They are family tombs, with several burials in each cave. Two kinds of burial niches are carved into the cave walls: The first type, called a loculus (Hebrew, kokh), consists of a long narrow cavity about 1.5 feet square and 6 feet deep. The second type, called an arcosolium, consists of an indented shelf about 6 feet wide and 2 feet deep, with 052an arched ceiling. Corpses were first placed in these niches for about a year or so, until the flesh had decomposed, after which the bones were removed from the burial niches and placed in a 2- to 3-foot-long box called an ossuary.^a This practice, which was standard in Jerusalem at the time, freed up room for future burials in the family cave-tombs. The poorest Jerusalemites, who could not afford family cave-tombs, were buried in fields, about a foot below the surface.²

At Qumran, however, near where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, the tombs from this period are entirely different.³ They are not family tombs, but individual graves—1,200 of them laid out in neat rows. Unlike the cave-tombs and field burials of Jerusalem, the Qumran graves are shaft graves. This type of grave consists of a rectangular shaft, about 4 to 6 feet deep, with a shelf for the body, dug out of the side of the shaft, at the bottom. Were these graves dug by the Essenes, the Jewish sect often associated with Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls? Was the form of the graves dictated by the unusual religious beliefs or customs of the Essenes? Or were these unusual tombs the result of the terrain and geology at Qumran?

Now a cemetery has been found in Jerusalem that has much in common with the Qumran graves. Are these the graves of Jerusalem Essenes?

As so often happens in Jerusalem, the cemetery was found accidentally, during construction of a highway. Construction workers were clearing the southern bank of the Repha’im Valley in Beit Safafa, in southwestern Jerusalem, when they made the find. As soon as the ancient remains were discovered, archaeologists were called in.⁴ Unfortunately, many graves had already been completely destroyed by the time we got there. Others, we suspect, have yet to be found.

We located 50 graves, 41 of which were excavated. They were very close together and consisted of 7-foot by 2-foot rectangular shafts sunk 5 to 7 feet into the ground. The bottom of the shaft had a horizontal burial niche cut into the soft marl (limestone). Two of the graves had two burial niches each, one above the other. After the corpse was interred, the niches were covered with limestone slabs and the shafts filled in with dirt. The burial niches were perhaps designed to create air pockets that would contain the ritual impurity of the corpse.⁵

Approximately half of the graves at Beit Safafa were oriented north-south and the other half east-west.⁶ At Qumran all but one of the graves were oriented north-south.

No tombstones, no heaps of stones (cairns)—nothing marks the location of the individual graves at Beit Safafa today. This contrasts with the Qumran tombs, each of which is marked by a cairn or, less often, a large standing stone. However, it is likely that the Beit Safafa tombs originally had stone markers that were plundered in antiquity and reused in nearby terrace walls.

In most cases, the Beit Safafa graves contained only one body each, laid on its back in a primary burial. There were, however, a few exceptions. In one double-storied grave, bodies were interred on both floors. In another double-storied grave (grave 127), two bodies were interred in the top niche. In two of the 053one-niche graves, two bodies were found buried together.

Anthropological examination of the Beit Safafa burials has identified the bones of about 47 individuals—42 adults and 5 children between 5 and 18 years old. We were able to determine the gender of 25 of the adults: Fifteen were male (that is, about 60 percent of the identifiable remains); ten were female (about 40 percent).⁷ It was not possible to determine the gender of the rest. The women’s and children’s graves were scattered indiscriminately throughout the cemetery. At Qumran, however, the remains of only seven or eight women were found among the 49 excavated graves (about 20 percent of the adult remains for which gender could be determined). No women were buried in the main cemetery. Rather, the women’s burials were located almost exclusively in extensions of the main cemetery and in a small cemetery to the south.⁸

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In one Beit Safafa grave (grave 107), we found a limestone ossuary with a flat lid—the kind usually found in burial caves—but it was empty. In two other graves, we found some nails—30 in one grave (grave 124) and 2 (grave 105) in the other. This would seem to indicate, at least in grave 124, that the original burial was in a wooden coffin that has since disintegrated.

Very few small finds were discovered in the Beit Safafa graves—again like Qumran. The only objects uncovered in the Qumran graves were some potsherds, a Herodian oil lamp (a plain round lamp with a flat base), a bronze ring, two earrings and 39 beads. At Beit Safafa we found a couple of small glass bottles and a glass bracelet, but that was all.⁹

We believe the Beit Safafa graves were dug and used primarily at the end of the Second Temple period.¹⁰ Our conclusion is based on their similarity to the Qumran graves and on the presence of an ossuary (a typical feature of Second Temple period burials) in one of the Beit Safafa graves. In addition, a Second Temple period rock-hewn cistern was surveyed at the eastern edge of the Beit Safafa cemetery, and two burial caves, part of Jerusalem’s vast Second Temple period necropolis, were located about 65 feet from the graves. A Second Temple period ritual bath, or miqveh, was also found about 300 yards away.

Unlike the hundreds of Second Temple period burial caves that have been found in Jerusalem, Beit Safafa’s deep shaft graves are extremely rare. Only three others have been found in Jerusalem, two in East Talpiyot, in southeastern Jerusalem, and one in Mamilla (grave 1), in central Jerusalem.¹¹ The 055concentration of “dug graves” at Beit Safafa is the largest yet found in Jerusalem or its environs.

Shaft graves like those at Beit Safafa and Qumran have also been found at one other site—Ein el-Ghuweir, about 10 miles south of Qumran on the shore of the Dead Sea. There archaeologists excavated 17 shaft graves, which held the remains of 13 men and 6 women.¹² Dating to the late Second Temple period, the Ein el-Ghuweir graves provide further evidence that our graves were dug in this period.

The shaft tombs found at Qumran, Beit Safafa and Ein el-Ghuweir are almost identical in size and shape. But, as we have seen, they have little in common with the typical Jerusalem cave-tombs:

• The shaft graves are the graves of individuals, while family tombs are the norm in Jerusalem.

• The shaft graves were used for primary, rather than secondary, burials. In family tombs in Jerusalem, by contrast, about a year after the primary burial the bones of the deceased were placed in an ossuary for a second burial.

• The shaft graves are unadorned, whereas the many monumental Jerusalem tombs are highly carved and decorated on both the outside and inside; indeed, several of the family tombs were designed to resemble imposing mansions. The shaft graves also differ from the shallow field graves dug for the poorest Jerusalemites.

• The shaft graves are anonymous; in most of the Jerusalem tombs, however, the name of the deceased is carved on the ossuary (which is usually highly decorated).

• The shaft graves at Beit Safafa and Qumran contained very few grave goods, whereas the Jerusalem tombs were rich with jewelry, vessels and ossuaries.

The foregoing needs to be qualified, however: An ossuary was found in one of the Beit Safafa graves, albeit a plain, empty one. Evidence of wooden coffins was found in two graves at Beit Safafa (i.e., coffin nails) and in two graves at Qumran. Further, while the few women’s graves at Qumran are located apart from the men’s, no such segregation appears in the Jerusalem cave-tombs or the Beit Safafa graveyard.

The variety of the Jerusalem graves and their grave goods is indicative of a society with several 062classes. The richest were buried in the most elaborate rock-cut tombs, and the poor were buried in the fields. The shaft graves at Beit Safafa, Qumran and Ein el-Ghuweir, however, are all similar in design; there appears to be no distinction between rich and poor.

The simple, shared design of these graves has led to the interpretation of the shaft-grave cemeteries at Beit Safafa and Qumran as Essene cemeteries.

The Essenes stressed communitarian economic principles and equality of resources, as well as a semi-ascetic lifestyle. Described by the first-century C.E. Jewish historian Josephus and the first-century Jewish philosopher Philo, this Jewish sect has been the subject of intense scholarly debate ever since the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered: Were the inhabitants of Qumran, the settlement adjacent to the caves where the scrolls were found, Essenes? Are the sectarian documents among the scrolls Essene texts?

The Beit Safafa graves certainly do not answer these questions. But they do suggest that if the inhabitants of Qumran were Essenes, then there must have been a contingent of Essenes living in Jerusalem. This is hinted at in the texts of Josephus and Philo. Josephus, for example, tells us that Essenes were to be found “in large numbers [totalling 4,000] in every town.”¹³ Josephus even refers to a Gate of the Essenes in Jerusalem.¹⁴

Some scholars maintain that Jerusalem’s Gate of the Essenes has been uncovered.¹⁵ We must now ask whether the cemetery of Jerusalem’s Essenes has also been found.

The mystery deepens. As if the perplexing graves at Qumran were not enough, the same unusual type of tomb has now been discovered in southern Jerusalem. None of these tombs looks remotely like the typical Jerusalem tomb from the same period, called the Second Temple period (first century B.C.E. to first century C.E.). More than 800 Jerusalem tombs of the standard variety have been found in the city, almost all in caves.1 They are family tombs, with several burials in each cave. Two kinds of burial niches are carved into the cave walls: The first type, called a loculus […]