Ni POLO SB, o 1 b 
iaciiias are speaking of the immediate receptacles of embalm¬ 
ed bodies, as reUques held in veneration by the Jews, they re 
fer to soroi constituting integral parts of mountains, and 
chiseled with a degree of labour not to be conceived- from 
mere description. These are monuments on which a lapse of 
ages effects no change: they have defied, and will defy, the 
attacks of time; and continue as perfect at this hour as they 
were in the first moment of their completion. Thus we are 
informed in sacred scripture, according to the Septuagint 
Version, that, wheti Joseph died,* “ they embalmed him, and 
he was put ‘ tv ;<r& 5 in Egyptthat is to say, in pne of 
those immense monolitkal receptacles to which alone the an- 
cients applied the name of sopqs : these were appropriated 
solely to the burial of men of princely rank; and their ex¬ 
istence, after the expiration of three thousand years, is indis¬ 
putably proved, by the appearance of one of them in the 
principal pyramid of Egypt. Therefore, when our English 
translators render the Hebrew or the Greek appellation for 
such a receptacle by our word coffin , necessarily associating 
ideas of a perishable box or chest with the name they use, it 
is not surprising to find a writer like Harmer stating it as an 
extraordinary fact, that the remains of distinguished persons 
in the east were honoured with a coffin, as a mark of their 
rank ; whereas, says he,f “with us, the poorest people have 
their coffins or that other authors should deride, and consi¬ 
der as preposterous, the traditions mentioned by Jewish Rat> 
bins, which, at this distance of time, presume to identify the 
coffins of their patriarchs and prophets.;); When it is once un¬ 
derstood what the real monuments are, to which those tradi¬ 
tions allude; the veneration always paid by that people to a 
place of sepulture; their rigorous adherence, in burial, to the 
cemeteries of their ancestors; the care with which memorials 
are transmitted to their posterity; aod other circumstances 
connected with their customs and history, which cannot here 
be enumerated: it is not merely probable, but it amounts al¬ 
most to certainty, that the sepulchres they revere were origi¬ 
nally the tombs of persons to whom they are now ascribed. 
Gen. l. 25. In the English Version the -words are, “ He was put in a coffin. n 
f See Harmejrts Observations, vol. Ill. p. 69, 70. Lond. 1803., 
} Gerrans. n/inslator of the Hebrew Itinerary of Rabbi Benjamin, published is 
1783,, makes uffi of an allusion to the Prophet DaniePs coffin, as a proof of the spuri¬ 
ous nature of me Work ( See. Dissert, p. 10 prffi xed to the volume.) There is every 
reason to belifve that Benjamin’s Itinerary is a mere compilation; but the objection 
thus urged dnfes not impeach its veracity. The tradition Alluded to was probafcly 
borrowed frob former writers, 
i 2 G 
