494 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 30 



workmen then built a wall across the passage to the grotto and 

 spread a deep blanket of earth over the top. 



A GRAECO-ROMAN TOMB 



In conclusion, we must recur once more to what we shall now 

 call the North Cemetery. In the immediate vicinity of the Iron Age 

 Tombs III and V, I had observed partly collapsed and weathered- 

 out tombs, whose surface appearance indicated that they belonged 

 to the Hellenistic or even to a later period. One of these, the best 

 preserved, had a covered forecourt about 6 feet square, and not quite 

 6 feet high. It had been hewn from a ledge of limestone. The 

 whole of the west side was open to the weather. The smooth vertical 

 wall of the east end was pierced at the floor level by a small square 

 opening scarcely large enough to admit a man. Both the forecourt 

 and the entrance were choked with rocks and soil to such an extent 

 that no animal larger than a fox could have entered the tomb. After 

 this had been cleared away, it could be seen that the tomb itself was 

 filled with debris nearly to the top. 



On consulting the Arab owner of the land on which the tomb 

 was located, he told me that it had been opened by an Arab purveyor 

 of antiquities just before the war, that he employed only one assist- 

 ant, and that he felt sure the tomb had not been entirely cleared. It 

 was, indeed, still largely filled with washed-in debris. Desiring to 

 ascertain, if possible, the age of the tomb, I directed one of our 

 Egyptian gang leaders to clear it and two women carriers to sift 

 the materials for small objects. "We were not disappointed. Very 

 soon a coin of Herod Archelaus came to light. This Archelaus, who 

 ruled from 4 B. C. to G A. D., is the one mentioned in Matthew 2 : 22. 

 He was a cruel ruler, and committed many outrages upon the Jews. 

 The latter denounced him so bitterly at Rome that he was cited by 

 the Emperor Augustus to appear before him. Unable to justify 

 himself, he was banished to Vienna in Gaul in the year 6 A. D. The 

 tomb, therefore, belongs approximately to the beginning of the 

 Christian era. Remains of beads, jewelry, seals, lamps, and other 

 objects recovered are also appropriate to this period, and are of 

 special historical interest, on account of their chronological coinci- 

 dence with the boyhood of Jesus of Nazareth. 



