FROM RHODES TO THE CUJLPH OF GLATJC173. 153 
stowed lias been immense; and the work is very beautiful. 
Some of these are more adorned than others, having, as w as be¬ 
fore stated, a kind of portico, with pillars in front. In those 
that tvere almost plain, the hewn stone was as smooth as if the 
artist had been employed upon wood, or any other soft sub¬ 
stance. The exterior form of almost every one of them can¬ 
not, perhaps, be better described, than by comparing them with 
a familiar article of household furniture, to which they have 
great resemblance : namely, those book cases, with glass doors* 
seen upon bureaus, surmounted by ornamental rail work over 
the front and sides. A small rectangular opening, scarcely 
large enough to pass through, admitted us to the interior of 
some of these tombs, where we found a square chamber, with 
one or more receptacles for dead bodies, shaped like baths, upon 
the sides of the apartment, and neatly chiselled in the body of 
the rock. The mouths of these sepulchres had been originally 
closed by square slabs of stone, exactly adapted to grooves cut 
for their reception; and so nicely adjusted, that, when the work 
was finished, the place of entrance might oot be observed. Of 
similar construction were the sepulchres of the Jews in Pales* 
tine; and particularly, that in which our Saviour was buried* 
as will be more fully show n la the sequel.* Inscriptions ap¬ 
peared upon several of them, but written in so many different 
characters, and with such various marks of time, that it is im¬ 
possible to assign any precise period for the age of their common 
origin. Upon some of them were letters of no remote date, as 
may be proved from the names they served to express, and the 
manner wherein they were written; and dose to these, were 
others of Phoenician workmanship. In proof of this, I shall here 
insert two inscriptions, copied from tombs adjoining each other ; 
both being hewn out of the same rock, and to all appearance 
by the same people. Upon the first appeare d, 
T IDEPIOTKAAmi 
ornEPiAMor 
* “ And laid him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a sl'ofe 
the door of the sepulchre.” Mark , xv. 46. 
