The Peculiar Headrests for the Dead in First Temple Times - The BAS Library
Login
Home > Magazines > BAR > July/August 1987

The Peculiar Headrests for the Dead in First Temple Times

By Othmar Keel

Some peculiarly shaped headrests are carved onto the stone benches of the École Biblique burial caves in Jerusalem. According to Amos Kloner (“Have the Tombs of the Kings of Judah Been Found?” in this issue), these elaborate and elegantly carved caves may actually be the burial chambers of the kings of Judah from the late First Temple period, seventh century B.C. In an earlier article entitled “Jerusalem Tombs From the Days of the First Temple,” BAR 12:02, Kloner and fellow archaeologist Gabriel Barkay described these burial caves in fascinating detail. The peculiar stone headrests on the burial benches “remind” […]

You have already read your free article for this month. Please join the BAS Library or become an All Access member of BAS to gain full access to this article and so much more.

Join the BAS Library!

Already a library member? Log in here.

Institution user? Log in with your IP address or Username

Footnotes

1.

Excavations and Surveys in Israel, Vol. 1, 1982 (Jerusalem: Israel Ministry of Education and Culture, Department of Antiquities and Museums).

Endnotes

1.

Henri Frankfort, “A Note on the Lady of Birth,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 3 (Chicago, 1944), pp. 198–200.

2.

Edith Porada, “An Emaciated Male Figure of Bronze in the Cincinnati Art Museum,” Studies Presented to A. Leo Oppenheim, June 7, 1964 (Chicago, 1964), pp. 159–166.