230 DR. E. TV. G. MASTERMAN, ON RECENT DISCOVERIES 



The food offerings, as represented by the pottery, become from 

 age to age increasingly a form, until at length in Christian tombs* 

 a heap of broken glass, manifestly in Iragments when deposited,, 

 is all that represents the custom. During this time, however, 

 another interment custom becomes marked, namely, the deposition 

 of lamps. They are few in the earlier tombs, but increase iii 

 numbers as the ages go on, until at length in the early Christian- 

 days we find crowds of lamps, mostly unused, deposited in the 

 chief tombs. The change would seem to indicate a refinement 

 of ideas ; firstly, a crude semi-materialistic belief that the spirit 

 needs food and drink and weapons as in life, and later, apparently, 

 the idea that li'jht is more necessary in the dark underworkL 

 The latter belief, one may suppose, gradually became refined to 

 a more truly spiritual symbolism in the case of the Christians, as 

 is shown by the inscription on one of the lamps, " The Lord is 

 my light." 



The indications from tlie interments are dim, uncertain, and 

 liable to many interpretations, but more important evidence of 

 the primitive Semitic religious beliefs is obtainable from {h) The 

 High Places. 



The earliest high place " found at Gezer — one unique of its- 

 ^kind — belongs to the troglodyte, non-Semiticf inhabitants. This- 

 consists of a great rock surface (90 feet north to south by 80- 

 feet east to west), covered with those circular marks called 

 " cup marks," which are so common over artificially levelled 

 rock surfaces in Palestine. There is no actual that they 



are religious in their nature, but it is impossible to think of any 

 practical use in domestic or social life to which they could 

 have been put. The cup marks at this place number in all 

 eighty-three — the largest is 8 feet in diameter and 9 inches 

 deep, the smallest but a few inches across. In connection with 

 this area there is an opening 1 foot wide — at the bottom of a 

 cup mark — leading into a cave — one of three caves associated 

 with this " high place." This narrow opening appears to have 

 been a kind of " shoot " wherein could be poured sacrificial blood 



* It should be explained that tlion.ali on the tell no remains later thair 

 Maccabean were found, a great number of Christian lonibs were opened 

 in the environs ; the remains of tliis and later periods lie probably under- 

 neath the modern village. 



t It is impossible to be certain whether this "high place" was pre- 

 Semitic, but it is suggestive that at the mouth of the pre-Semitic 

 crematorium a cup mark was made which at a later period, when the cave 

 became a burial place for the early Semites, was replaced by a Masseba/i. 



