208

Division II Section A Part 3

to receive another body which would be slid in as in the Nabataean tomb, and the
slab would be put in place. Thus six openings in the end wall served for twelve
loculi, and eight openings in the two side walls accommodated sixteen loculi.
No stelae were found in or near the tomb of Sareidos. There were perhaps never
any stelae here, for the names of the dead are found in inscriptions 1 that were painted
in red upon the slabs which closed the loculi. Some of these inscriptions are still
legible. It may be that these painted inscriptions were placed here for the convenience
of the family and of those who were admitted to the tomb chamber, and that a
conventional row of stelae outside the tomb set forth the names of the dead within

to the casual passer-by. Stelae were so well adapted to the making of corbelled stairs,
that the Christian builders of Umm idj-Djimal allowed very few stelae of Pagan tombs
to remain in their places, and the mere absence of stelae from the front of a tomb
does not necessarily mean that there were never any stelae there. But if the use of
these name tablets was an Arabic, that is to say a Nabataean, custom, it would be
interesting to know for how long, and to what extent, the custom was projected into
Roman and Christian times in Southern Syria. The square compartments in the angles
between the loculi opening upon the sides and end of the chamber were also used for
interment. They were divided into two tiers, instead of four, and the intermediate
floor and the roof were supported by a pier in the middle as shown in the plan.
These receptacles for the dead could be reached only from above, by making an
opening in the stone roof. In all probability the intermediate floor was not put in
until the bottom floor had
received its complement of
bodies.
Tomb of Masechos.
A large number of the ruin-
ed tombs on the west side
of the city, particularly those
near the high-road, were of
the type illustrated in the
tomb of Masechos (Ill. 189).
This is the third form men-
tioned in the introductory
words on the tombs. Here
we have a little building, a
diminutive square chapel,
with its doorway on the
south or east. Within the
doorway, which is on the
ground level, the floor is found to be sunk 1.10 m., and the walls of this sunken
part, on three sides, are made up of the ends of loculi, as in the larger tombs, but
in only one tier. The outer ends of these loculi project far out beyond the walls of
the little tomb building. The loculi were closed in with thin slabs; but the tombs
were further protected by a floor of stone slabs inserted at the level of the door-sill.

PLAN SECTION AB restored-
TOMB 0F MASECHOS·


Ill. 189.

1 III, inscs. 279, 280.