clarke’s travels* 
MA 
mouth of a cavern, twelve yards wide, exhibiting, over live 
entrance, an architrave with a beautifully sculptured frieze. 
Entering this cavern, and turning to the left, a second 
architrave appears above the entrance to another cavern, but 
so near to the floor of the cave as barely to admit the passage 
of a man’s body through the aperture. We lighted some wax 
tapers, and here descended into the first chamber. In the 
sides of it were other square openings, like door frames, offer¬ 
ing passages to yet interior chambers. Ia one of these we 
found the operculum of a white marble coffin :* this was entire** 
1} covered with the richest and most beautiful sculpture, but ? 
like all the other sculptured work about the place, it represent¬ 
ed nothing of the human figure, nor of any animal, but consist** 
ed entirely of foliage and flowers, and principally ef the leaves 
and branches of the vine. 
As to the history of this most princely place of burial, we 
shall find it difficult to obtain much information. That it was 
not what its name implies, is very evident; because the sepul¬ 
chres of the kings of Judah were in Mount Sion. The 
most probable opinion is maintained by Pococke.f who consi¬ 
dered it as the sepulchre of Helena, queen of Adiabene. De 
Chateaubriand has since adopted Pococke’s opinion.^ But 
both these writers, speaking of the pyramids mentioned by Jo¬ 
sephus at Helena’s monument,f have overlooked the testimony 
of Eusebius upon the subject, and of his commentator Yalesi- 
its. According to Eusebius,[j conspicuous pillars, rather than 
pyramids, sthaai aja^aneis, denoted, in his time, the site of 
Helena’s burial place : and it may be urged, that Stilae** are 
indeed very appropriate characteristics of the exterior of an 
"' This is engraved in Le Bruyn’s Travels. See plate facing p. 185. tom. II. Voy. 
au Levant. Paris, 1725. ' 
1 Description of the East, to! II. p. 29. Lond. 1745. See the plan of these se¬ 
pulchres, beautifully engraved in the fifth plate of that volume. 
t See Trav. in Greece, Palaest. fee vol. If. p. 106. Lond. 1811. 
' Joseph. Antiq. lib. xx, c. 2. Colon. 1691. 
JjTns yi to» 'EKzvns r\s <Sn xd 6.007ypekpeus hpivcraTO nvfyrov, ilcr'm vvv crroAca 
f\ic(pavsTs h rrpooLariiois $£ixwvrai tvs vCv Alkias- .Toil 5i ’A<$ic$r>vMv 10vow avrv (3 a- 
< 7 i\fvcrai ikiysro. “ Ceteruai Helenas iiid&;.cujus men.tio fit a Josepbo, illustres 
et/amnum extant cippi in suburbiis Hiei osolymorum, quae mutato nomine^mmc 
-Elia appellatur; eamque Adiabenorum reginam fuisse perhibent.” Eusebii Hist 
iElcl. lib. ii. c. 12. p. 50. Paris, 1659. 
^The reader is requested to examine the observations concerning sepulchral pp- 
jars, pp. 1,3, 10. of the author’s account of the Greek Marbles at Cambridge ; t®. 
•which he is now able to add the following remarks from Valesius. “In hoc Eusebii 
jpco crrnX'd sunt columnae, seu cippi sepulchrales in quibus humatorum nomina per- 
scril ebantur. De his schoiiastes Aristopbanis in Equitibus et in AVibus.' Earum 
usus etiam apud Romanos. Nam Dio, in lib. 67. 'defunebri cena, ait arr\kvv raoposiffi 
?xacr- rw crCp&v Trap'icrrvvt r 6 ts ovojUCt, ctuTou i%oycrav. Idem in lib. 69 de eqqi 
Borysthenis sepulchro eandem vocem usurpat. In veteribus glossis arnkv cippus 
rfd^itur. Cicero in libro 2 da Isgibus colwpftas dixit, ubi agjt de S£j>t$lchsk. €1®-. 
