368 THE HOLY LAND. 
This, like the tombs where we discovered the 
inscriptions, is also a Crypt, or cave, hewn with 
marvellous skill and most surprising labour, in 
a stratum of hard compact limestone. Whatever 
may have been the real history of its origin, 
there can be no doubt but that it was intended 
as a repository for the dead, and, from all ap- 
pearance, as the receptacle of many bodies. It 
seems also to be evident, that the persons here 
interred were held in veneration by the living, 
from the commodious and magnificent descent 
leading to the interior of the Crypt, together 
with the dome and altar which appear within, 
as for a sanctuary. Neither Eusehius, Epipha- 
7iius, nor Jerom, mentions a syllable to authorize 
even the tradition concerning this sepulchre. The 
earliest notice of it, as the Tomb of the Virgin^ 
occurs in the writings of j4damnanus, the Irish 
monk and abbot of lona, who described it 
from the testimony of Arculfus ' in the seventh 
conjecture that she died at Ephemis ; but some think, rather, at Jeru' 
salem ; where, in later n;;es, mention is made of her sepulchre, cut in 
a rocic at Gethsemani." Butler's Lives of (he Saints, vol. Vlll. p. 178. 
EcUnb. 1799. 
(5) Sanctorum locorum sodulus frequentator sanctus Arculfus Sanctaj 
Marife ecclesiam in valle Josaphat frcquentabat : cujus duliciter fabri- 
cata; inferior pars sub lapideo tabulate mirabili rotunda structura est 
fabricata : in cujus orientali parte altarium liabetur ; ad dexteram vcro 
ejus partem, sanctoe Mariae inest saxeum cavum sepulchrum, in quo ali- 
quando sepulta pausavit." Adamnan. De Loc. Saiict. apud Mabillon, 
Ada Snnctor. Ord. Benedict. Sere. J. Pars 2. p. 507. L. Par. 1()72. 
