Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (4.1992(1993))

Unlike other known mummies or fragments thereof, this body
was not wrapped in cloth bands, but left entirely naked, though
rolled in a woollen carpet and other textiles, all soaked in
aromatic substances intended to preserve the flesh. Indeed, it has
dried up without decomposition. A Late Hellenistic perfume bottle
was left on the threshold of the /ocM&y and sealed together with
the burial. The only belongings of the deceased were a wooden
stick and a tin bottle, but of the latter only small fragments
remain.
The room containing this burial was later sealed with stones
and plaster, and marked with an inscription which reads: "Kohailu
and Hairan, sons of Atenatan, and their children". Because the
burial appears to be the oldest in the chamber, there is a good
chance that the man whose body we recovered was one of the
founder brothers; the Hellenistic form of the bottle (another
similar bottle was found broken on the floor) confirms an early
date around the beginning of the 1st century A.D.
Clearing work in the ground-level chamber, which opened to
the north, revealed several plaster lamp-bowls, placed on the floor
in front of the /ocM/i. In one of them a lamp was found undis-
turbed; together with another lamp found nearby in similar
circumstances, it provides a cross-dating for the abandonement of
the chamber about 100 A.D. This is confirmed by a silver coin
of Domitian, as well as by a funerary slab of Sheba daughter of
Atenatan, which belonged to the group of early funerary sculp-
ture. It features earrings in the form of grapes, matched by a real
jewel in silver set with pearls, found in this very room.
In the same room a camelian gem of remarkable workman-
ship was also found, as well as beads and pearls, common on all
levels and recovered in considerable quantities. Only after the

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