Page 60 - BV3

burial benches -- "koochim" in Hebrew -- several of
which had hollowed-out areas for the gathered bones,
are described by Barkay as "typical of First Temple
burial practices." Further, horseshoe-shaped headrests
and other architectural decorative details added to the
archaeologists convictions that this catacomb dates to
the time of the Judean Kings.

As they continued their survey of the cave, the archae-
ologists noticed rectangular, sunken panels hewn into
the rock walls of the cave. According to Prof. Barkay,
these panels are probably stone copies of typical
wooden panels that covered the walls of elegant Judean
palaces during the Kingdom period.

Moreover, "these stone panels help us to imagine what
the cedar panels of King Solomon's Temple may have
looked like," says Prof. Barkay. According to the Book
of Kings 6:9, "...[Solomon] built the house [of the
Lord] and finished it; and covered the house with
beams and boards of cedar."

Jeremiah also tells of paneled walls in his prophecy
against Jehoyakim, king of Judah. Jeremiah 22, verse
14, states: "...I will build myself a spacious house with
The inside chamber of the tomb which is believed large upper rooms...paneling it with cedar, and painting
to be the final resting place of the Kings of the it with vermilion!"
House of David.
The burial benches found inside the tomb also helped
In fact, Prof. Barkay points out that there is no evi-
dence on the walls of "tooling," which means that no to clarify several passages of the Bible. The underside
iron tools were used in their construction. This is of these benches were found to be hollow. When they
markedly different from the way catacombs were dug were needed for the next generation burials, the bones
in the Second Temple period during the time of Jesus. and burial gifts of the former generation were simply
By contrast, at that time, many clear impressions of gathered up and placed in the hollowed area underneath
metal-toothed chisels used to finish off the walls were the bench.
always noticeable.
Burial benches would eventually fill up with bones of
Emphasizing that the tooling marks, architectural fea- several generations. Knowing the burial customs of
tures and burial customs of the First Temple period are that time helps clarify, for example, a passage in the
as familiar to him, "as if [he] had lived in those times," Book of Judges: "...[The] whole generation was gath-
Prof. Barkay appraised the catacomb's "smooth ma- ered together [with] their ancestors." (Judges 2:10).
sonry work [as] typical of royal architecture in both the Also, 2 Kings records that, "Joram slept with his
kingdoms of Israel and Judah during the late bronze and ancestors, and was buried with them." (2 Kings 8:24).
early iron age period [roughly 1000-800 B.C.]." Joram may well have been buried in this very chamber
which had plenty of room to accommodate such a pro-
As Prof. Barkay continued to survey the burial cave, cedure (approx. 10,000 square feet or 930 square
more and more pieces of evidence began to accumu- meters).
late that demonstrated similarities between the con-
struction methods of this catacomb and those of other According to Dr. Amos Klone, who investigated the
burial caves during the time of the Kingdom of Judah. tomb with Prof. Barkay, many of the cave's features in-
These observations coupled with some precise features dicate that this catacomb, "is not a regular burial cave,
of the catacomb such as a central entrance chamber, as we [normally] find at the end of the Iron Age. It may

60