IN PALESTINE IN RELATION TO THE BIBLE. 



229 



interesting thing is, that with the bodies, probably those of local 

 celebrities, were deposited food vessels once containing food for 

 the spirits of the departed. Some of the vessels appear to have 

 been partially burnt at the thne of the cremation. At the next 

 period — that of the earliest Semitic peoples which we may for 

 want of a better name call early Canaanites — the bodies, laid on 

 the left side with the knees drawn up, are buried in caves. Here 

 the arrangements for supplying the deceased with nourishment 

 and drink were on an elaborate scale, more so than at any later 

 periods. Large vessels with wdde mouths and pointed bottoms 

 were found carefully set up on end, evidently because they 

 contained, when placed in the cave, some liquid, and smaller 

 vessels, to be used as "dippers" (exactly as the fellah to-day 

 takes water out of such a vessel) were found lying inside them. 

 The food, of which mutton was, by the evidence of the bone 

 fragments, one constituent, w^as laid on a large dish, and another 

 dish was laid over it, to keep off the dust. In one case a bronze 

 spear-head was put with the food apparently to act as a knife 

 for cutting it up ! 



In one of these tombs no less than fifty pieces of pottery of 

 different types were found as w^ell as alabaster vessels, jewellery, 

 silver pins, etc., together with scarabs of the Xllth dynasty, 

 including one of Usertesen III. (about 2660 B.C.). 



In the later Semitic tombs the bodies are laid in the same 

 position. The otterings of food and drink are continued, but 

 there is a tendency to make the custom a mere form ; there are 

 fewer large and valuable jars and many small " dipping jugs." 

 " Possibly at this period the fluid offerings were ceremoniously 

 poured out."f Many of the deposited jugs were injured, either 

 having been broken " to liberate the ghost of the object "f so 

 deposited, or simply from a spirit of economy, w^hich becomes 

 marked at a later age. In some tombs bronze weapons were 

 found ; in one a magnificent bronze scimitar 23 inches long, in 

 another as many as 131 fine javelin heads. 



In the Maccabean age the bodies were laid out flat in IvHm, 

 and after being allowed to decay, the bones were deposited in 

 ossuary boxes. These boxes were then deposited either in special 

 chambers or sometimes even packed into the kokim. At this 

 period pottery is still to some extent laid in the tombs ; it is 

 often broken and is found inside a kok or ranged against the wall 

 of the chamber. 



* Macalister, loc. cit. 



