492 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 30 



TOMB NUMBER V 



Feeling sure that there were other tombs in the immediate neigh- 

 borhood, I liad the thin cover of debris removed from the underly- 

 ing rock, and soon we found the opening of another tomb close to 

 the f)receding. Its doorstone was gone. A flight of three stone steps 

 led down from the small square opening into a central oblong pit 

 flanked around the top by passages n.earlj'^ a meter in width. At the 

 back was another room whose floor had been sunk to the same depth 

 as the pit in front. Both chambers were filled with earth to within 

 a foot of the ceiling. When cleared this tomb was found to contain 

 an astonishing amount of pottery of the Early Iron Age (1200- 

 800 B. C.) and is, therefore, contemporaneous with the earlier period 

 of Old Testament history. Two scarabs, found with the pottery, 

 will be submitted to expert Egyptologists, for they may furnish a 

 more definite date for the burial deposit. 



The tomb has yielded 183 museum objects, besides much other 

 material for historical study. One curious terra-cotta bottle jar, so 

 far as known, is unique. It simulates, with incised spirals, a bee- 

 hive built up in a blunt cone by means of coiled ropes of straw. A 

 spirally incised bottle neck on the side makes the doorway for the 

 bees. Inside of the jar was found a waxlike deposit which, on chemi- 

 cal examination, may confirm the plausible supposition that it was 

 used to provide a food offering of honey for the dead. (Deut. 26 : 14.) 



Another piece of pottery suggests a swan. The long curved 

 neck is surmounted by a pitcher mouth with laterally pinched lips 

 simulating a mandible. On top, or in other words on the back, are 

 painted in red and black bands the outlines of wings. This object 

 may have come from Cyprus or may be a local imitation of Cypriote 

 art. Among the scores of other vessels are amphoras, bottle jugs, 

 pitchers, saucers, chalices, an incense burner, and other forms hard 

 to describe. There were scores of small black juglets which probably 

 contained oil or some other substance deemed important to the dead. 

 Equally numerous were the saucer lamps, and not one of them had 

 even the suggestion of a foot. Among 30, bowls of various sizes and 

 forms there were some that had been, pebble burnished over a deep 

 red slip. 



After clearing these two tombs I once more examined the sur- 

 roundings on the slope where they were situated, and became fully 

 convinced that we had found the Tell en-Nasbeh necropolis, the city 

 of the dead. The only question on which we needed further light 

 was the length of the historical period during which burials had 

 been made here. The two tombs already cleared covered the period 

 from the Early Iron Age to the Hellenistic period, 1200 to 250 B. C. 

 Was the slope also used for burials during the Bronze Age? Not 



