Endnote 6 – Did a Rolling Stone Close Jesus’ Tomb?

Macalister, “The Rock-cut Tombs in Wady er-Rababi, Jerusalem,” PEFQS 34 (1904), item no. 38; Avigad, “Necropolis,” p. 346. Round blocking stones from the Second Temple period have also been found outside Jerusalem—at Horvat Midras (Kloner, “Horvat Midras (Kh. Durusiya)”, Israel Exploration Journal 27:4 [1977], pp. 251–253; and “Horvat Midras,” Qadmoniot 11:4 [44] [1978], pp. 115–119) and at Giv’at Seled, nearby (Kloner, “A Burial Cave from the Early Roman Period at Giv’at Seled in the Judean Shephela,” ‘Atiqot 20 [1991], pp. 159–163), in the Judean Shephelah. In southern Samaria, similar round closing stones were found in Deir ed-Darb, where the rolling stone moved between two walls of rock, and in Khirbet Kurkush (R.M.R. Savignac, “Chronique (Kh. Kurkush et Deir ed-Darb),” Revue biblique 19 [1910], pp. 123–124), where stones were of the simpler, smaller type used in the Byzantine period. The burial caves at these latter two sites are from the first to second century C.E., and represent the transition between early Roman and late Roman round blocking stones. Two additional caves with round blocking stones from the same period were discovered and excavated in Heshbon, Transjordan. In one cave in which the stone was found in situ, it moved between the natural rock wall inside and a constructed outer wall (D.S. Waterhouse, “Areas E and F,” in R.S. Boraas and Siegfried H. Horn, Heshbon [Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews Univ. Press, 1971], pp. 115–117; Horn, “The 1971 Season of Excavations at Tell Hesban,” Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan [ADAJ] 17 [1972], pp. 21–22, 111, pl. 4). A second cave was sealed with a round stone that moved between two rock walls (Lawrence T. Geraty, “The 1974 Season of Excavations at Tell Hesban,” ADAJ 20 [1975], p. 53, pl. 20, 1; and Geraty, “Chronique archéologique: Hesban (Heshbon),” Revue biblique 82 [1975], pp. 583–584, pl. 43b). For the Heshbon tombs nos. F1 and G10, which were probably used by the Jews residing there at the time, see also L.A. Mitchel, Hellenistic and Roman Strata, Hesban 7 (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews Univ. Press, 1992), pp. 61–63.