DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4859#0032
THE TOMB AND ITS OWNERS
up the slope, and is excavated just below a bed of crumbling shale in
rock which is only a little more consolidated than the stratum forming
its roof. The little area, some five meters square, which forms a court-
yard in front of it, is sunk in the hillside and reached by a short descent
cut in the rock. Its splayed walls are coated with hib plaster. On the
west a low slab of rock, a few inches high, has been left, as if to provide
a bench for offerings. On the opposite side is the entrance to a roughly
hewn and undecorated tomb with two chambers. Of these the outer one
has a roof supported by a central pillar of rock. The inner one contains
a burial shaft, which, fearing the ramifications it might possess, I did not
excavate, and at a higher level a loculus into which a coffin could be
pushed. Tomb 181 itself is of very small dimensions and makes no pre-
tensions within or without to any accuracy of plan or neatness of finish.
Its doorway is now a mere entrance. It had probably once been provided
with a shoddy framing of thin sandstone slabs laid against the rock, and
we may possess a relic of this in half a lintel of the sort, having no other
ornament than a cavetto cornice. The carelessness which marks the ex-
terior is no less evident within. No pains have been taken to lay out the
rooms correctly; the downward slope of the courtyard is continued; and
the walls are neither straight, upright, nor uniformly crooked (Plate
III). A tall man would have to stoop to enter, could just stand in the
hall, but must remain bent in the inner room. The miserable character
of the rock forbade any increase of size and did not invite precision of
outline; but gross carelessness was exhibited in enshrining such merito-
rious work under a shelter so precarious and at the foot of an inward
slope which every visitation of rain must turn into a gutter. It is almost
by a miracle that anything has survived the threatened dangers, and
that the fall of the ceiling and the irruption of rain-water have only re-
sulted in the loss of the less valuable scenes. The danger, however, is
not past, and any charge of indifference to values which we lay upon the
original owners is one that may recoil upon ourselves before long.
The tomb consists of an outer painted chamber transverse to the
axis and an inner one lying along it, which also contains a painting on
17
The site
of the tomb
Its form
and features
up the slope, and is excavated just below a bed of crumbling shale in
rock which is only a little more consolidated than the stratum forming
its roof. The little area, some five meters square, which forms a court-
yard in front of it, is sunk in the hillside and reached by a short descent
cut in the rock. Its splayed walls are coated with hib plaster. On the
west a low slab of rock, a few inches high, has been left, as if to provide
a bench for offerings. On the opposite side is the entrance to a roughly
hewn and undecorated tomb with two chambers. Of these the outer one
has a roof supported by a central pillar of rock. The inner one contains
a burial shaft, which, fearing the ramifications it might possess, I did not
excavate, and at a higher level a loculus into which a coffin could be
pushed. Tomb 181 itself is of very small dimensions and makes no pre-
tensions within or without to any accuracy of plan or neatness of finish.
Its doorway is now a mere entrance. It had probably once been provided
with a shoddy framing of thin sandstone slabs laid against the rock, and
we may possess a relic of this in half a lintel of the sort, having no other
ornament than a cavetto cornice. The carelessness which marks the ex-
terior is no less evident within. No pains have been taken to lay out the
rooms correctly; the downward slope of the courtyard is continued; and
the walls are neither straight, upright, nor uniformly crooked (Plate
III). A tall man would have to stoop to enter, could just stand in the
hall, but must remain bent in the inner room. The miserable character
of the rock forbade any increase of size and did not invite precision of
outline; but gross carelessness was exhibited in enshrining such merito-
rious work under a shelter so precarious and at the foot of an inward
slope which every visitation of rain must turn into a gutter. It is almost
by a miracle that anything has survived the threatened dangers, and
that the fall of the ceiling and the irruption of rain-water have only re-
sulted in the loss of the less valuable scenes. The danger, however, is
not past, and any charge of indifference to values which we lay upon the
original owners is one that may recoil upon ourselves before long.
The tomb consists of an outer painted chamber transverse to the
axis and an inner one lying along it, which also contains a painting on
17
The site
of the tomb
Its form
and features