HOME

TheInfoList



Click Here for Items Related To - Tomb of Zechariah
OR:
Tomb of Zechariah on:   [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Amazon]

The Tomb of Zechariah is an ancient stone monument in
Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
that is considered in Jewish tradition to be the tomb of Zechariah ben Jehoiada. It is a few meters from the Tomb of Absalom and adjacent to the Tomb of Benei Hezir.


Architectural description

The monument is a
monolith A monolith is a geological feature consisting of a single massive stone or rock, such as some mountains. For instance, Savandurga mountain is a monolith mountain in India. Erosion usually exposes the geological formations, which are often ma ...
—it is completely carved out of the solid rock The lowest part of the monument is a
crepidoma Crepidoma is an architectural term for part of the structure of ancient Greek buildings. The crepidoma is the multilevel platform on which the superstructure of the building is erected. The crepidoma usually has three levels. Each level typi ...
, a base made of three steps. Above it there is a stylobate, upon which there is a decoration of two ionic columns between two half ionic columns and at the corners there are two
pilaster In classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wal ...
s. The capitals are of the Ionic order and are decorated with the egg-and-dart decoration. The upper part of the monument is an Egyptian-style
cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...
upon which sits a pyramid. The fine masonry and decoration that is visible on the western side, the facade, is only the western side. On the other sides of the tomb, the work is extremely rough and unfinished; it seems as if the work was stopped before the artists could finish the job.Rachel Hachlili, ''Jewish funerary customs, practices and rites in the Second Temple period'' (2005), page 132


Identification


Traditional identification

According to a
Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
tradition, which is first suggested by the 1215 AD writings of Menahem haHebroni, this is the tomb of the priest Zechariah Ben Jehoiada, a figure that the
Book of Chronicles The Book of Chronicles ( he, דִּבְרֵי־הַיָּמִים ) is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Chronicles) in the Christian Old Testament. Chronicles is the final book of the Hebrew Bible, concluding the third se ...
records to have been stoned: :''And the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, which stood above the people, and said unto them, Thus saith God, Why transgress ye the commandments of the Lord, that ye cannot prosper? because ye have forsaken the Lord, he hath also forsaken you. And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the Lord''


Scientific identification and dating

The style of the construction, which includes
Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
details such as
Ionic columns The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan (a plainer Doric), and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite o ...
, is similar to that of the Tomb of Benei Hezir, and several authors think that they are near-contemporary with one another; scholars specialising in
funerary A funeral is a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect ...
practices and monuments have ascribed a first-century AD date to the tomb. It has been proposed that the ''Tomb of Zechariah'' is actually the ''nefesh'' (a Jewish funerary monument similar to the Greek ''
stele A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek language, Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ...
'') for the Tomb of Benei Hezir,Samuel Rocca, ''Herod's Judaea'', (2008), page 365 which is accessed from a rock-cut passage adjacent to the monument, and which states that it has an adjacent ''magnificent structure'', an item not otherwise identified.


See also

* Rock-cut tombs in ancient Israel


References

{{Coord, 31, 46, 34.45, N, 35, 14, 20.83, E, display=title Archaeological sites in Jerusalem Jewish mausoleums Z Mount of Olives Rock-cut tombs Tombs in Israel