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HOME Forword Selected sources |
THE JEWS JEWISH FUNERAL RITUALS ‘He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.’ 91st Psalm The Jewish population of Palestine, like Jewish communities throughout the Roman Empire, practiced their traditional burial rites. These are described in detail in Talmudic literature, dating from the Roman Imperial- and early Byzantine period. After death, the eyes and the mouth of the deceased were closed with special care. The house of the family became a house of mourning. Grief was expressed in many ways; people cried and lamented, while others offered consolation to those in mourning. Sometimes earth was strewn on the head, or there was a ritual shaving of the hair and beard. The body was washed, covered with herbs and wrapped in white linen shrouds. The pall-bearers, who carried the body on a bier, recited the 91st psalm on the way to the grave and professional mourners and musicians were often hired to accompany the procession. The deceased was placed into the grave in either just the linen shroud or in a coffin. The tomb would remain open for the three days in case the deceased should wake up, and no services were held in the synagogue in the period between death and burial. REBURIED BONES - OSSILEGIUM AND OSSUARIES A type of burial, in which the bones are reburied after the flesh has disappeared, was an important element of the burial rites in many different cultures and periods and is still common today in some parts of Greece, where remains are exhumed after a couple of years, the bones collected and put into chests which are then stored in charnel-houses. The rite was practised in Palestine as early as the 1st millennium BC, when human bones were placed in cavities in burial chambers or in charnel-houses, perhaps so that they might also benefit from the offerings made to newly buried. The actual ossilegium, the act of gathering the bones and laying them to rest in a special chest for bones (ossuary) or in niches, began in the last two centuries BC, when the belief in resurrection became widely accepted. A close family member, usually the son, had to collect the bones of his parents one or two years after burial in the family tomb. He would then place them a niche in the tomb or in an ossuary. Ossilegium has often been seen as a Jewish tradition, but had long been widely practised in the Levant, as well as in Persia and central Asia. It may have mainly served a practical function, as burial space was scare and expensive in densely populated areas, Ossilegium provided an acceptable way of clearing away older burials, and making room for new ones.
Photo: © The National Museum of Art Although ossuaries may not have been a Jewish invention, the tradition became a popular one. Ossuaries came in vogue in about 20 BC in Jerusalem, about the same time as marble cinerary chests became popular in Rome, and provided wealthier Jews with a fashionable funerary container much like those used in other parts of the Hellenistic-Roman world.
Photo: © The National Museum of Art This is a beautiful example of an early Jewish ossuary, from the period 20 BC to AD 70. The ossuaries were often made by makers stone masons, which may explain their frequent use of architectural ornaments, such as the six-petalled rosette.
Photo: © The Museum of Cultural History DIASPORA Originally ossuaries were only produced in Jerusalem and its surrounding region. After the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 following the first Jewish revolt, the production and use of ossuaries shifted to other parts of Palestine, probably due to the movements of Jewish refugees in the Diaspora. Some 50 years later, the Bar Kohbar revolt (AD 132-135), led to further oppression and the expulsion of the Jews. Families were forced to leave their homes, thus making the maintenance of their family tombs difficult, if not impossible. One solution may have been to transport the bones to the family tombs in light wooden chests instead of heavy stone ossuaries. (C 40839; 40840)? (finnes ingen foto; her er det 2 nr, men 1 tekst) THE JEWISH NECROPOLIS OF JAFFA After the expulsion of the Jews from Jerusalem and parts of Judaea, only a few places in Palestine still had sizeable Jewish communities. We know of several minor Jewish burial sites from Late Antiquity, but only two larger ones. Both of these are situated on the coast, at Beth Shearim and Jaffa. Our collections contain a significant number of the surviving inscriptions from the necropolis at Jaffa. Because of the extensive looting that took place at this site in the late 19th century, the individual tombs can no longer be dated using the grave goods they must once have contained. We can estimate that the necropolis was in use some time between the 3rd and the 5th century AD, and recent excavations and descriptions by 19th century travellers provide us with some information about the appearance of the tombs. About 50 tombs have been excavated and more than 80 tomb inscriptions are known. Most of the tombs were built according to a well-known design, typical for Jewish, as well as tombs of other religious gruops in Roman Syria and Judaea. A stair or corridor leads to one or more central burial chambers. In the chamber walls are oblong cavities in which the bodies were placed. The opening was later walled up. Inscriptions were usually affixed to the outer and inner walls of the tomb. Recent excavations in the cemetery revealed an inscription in its original position, in a niche over the tomb’s entrance. TOMB INSCRIPTIONS FROM JAFFA The inscriptions are written in Hebrew or Greek, or in both languages. Greek was the official language of the eastern Mediterranean in Antiquity. Many of the inscriptions contain little more than the name of the deceased and the deceased’s father, but sometimes even this information is of great value. “I, Saul, have bought a tomb in Joppe from Baroukhios. We buried Saul and Synkletike in the first place.” The inscription of Saul is one of the very few that mentions Joppe (the Greco-Roman name for Jaffa). It also shows that the tombs were purchased. There were associations that built and administered the necropolises and sold tombs to individuals and families. There was also official and voluntary aid for the poor. Charitable groups sometimes helped with the burial and the collection of bones.
Photo: © The Museum of Cultural History Another inscription tells us about the family that used the tomb: “Place of rest of the mother of Aboudemmos and Samuel and Zenon and of their family and of their sister, (of the family) of Kohhathioi …. Peace, Aboudemmou.” The inscriptions of Jaffa often end with the closing words; Eirene (Greek: Peace), Shalom (Hebrew: Peace) and Amen.
Photo: © The Museum of Cultural History BIBLICAL TRADITION There are references to the purchase and use of family tombs in the Bible. When Abraham’s wife Sarah died in Hebron, Abraham mourned and wept. He went to Ephron the Hittite and bought the cave of Machpelah and the surrounding land for 400 silver shekels. This cave became the family tomb where Abraham, his wife Sarah, their sons Isaac and Jacob and their wives Rebecca and Leah found their final resting place. WHO WERE THE PEOPLE BURIED AT JAFFA? Due to war and persecution, the Jews of Judaea were dispersed over a large part of the ancient world in the Greco-Roman period. Either by choice, or because they were again expelled from their new homes, many Jews later returned to Judaea. In the 3rd to the 5th century AD, the period when the Jaffa necropolis was in use, large numbers of Jews from Egypt and other Roman provinces seem to have returned to Jaffa. It may also be that Jews living in outside Judaea wished to be buried in the Holy Land and saw to it that their bones were transported to there after death. This is a wish with roots that go back to the Bible as, for example, when Joseph died in Egypt: And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence. So Joseph died, being a hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. (Genesis 50, 25-26) PEOPLE OF MANY WALKS OF LIFE Many of the inscriptions name the profession of the dead. In our collection there is a linen merchant, a priest, a baker, a spice dealer, a fuller, a rag-seller and a labourer. Some of the inscriptions mention the place of origin of the deceased. Most came from Egypt, but there are also Jews from Mesopotamia, Asia Minor and the Aegean islands. THE FATE OF THE JEWISH NECROPOLIS AT JAFFA The fate of the Jewish necropolis at Jaffa is a tragic example of how important archaeological site can be destroyed by careless exploitation. On November, 3rd 1873, the French orientalist Charles S. Clemont-Ganneau arrived at the Palestine port of Jaffa. He had come to Ottoman Palestine to lead an archaeological expedition on behalf of the British government. On his way to Jerusalem, he and his small party stopped at the town of Abu-Kabir, where they hoped to find the ancient necropolis of Jaffa. The site was inhabited by Egyptian immigrants, who had discovered rock-cut tombs while quarrying building stone. Although there were laws to protect cultural heritage, these were not enforced by the Ottoman authorities, and the tombs and their contents were subject to constant looting. We can imagine Clermont-Ganneau’s excitement when one of the men showed him a tomb-stone with an unmistakeably Jewish symbol, the menorah. Here was clear evidence that the Jewish necropolis had indeed been found. Clermont-Ganneau bought the inscription on the spot and put it into his saddle bag, hoping it would be the first of many such finds. Eager for more discoveries, he returned to the site about seven months later. He scoured the homes of the local people in search of more inscriptions. Although Clermont-Ganneau’s motives were purely scientific and his purchases provided the poor local peasants with welcome extra income, his actions created a market for these antiquities which encouraged further looting. The plundering of the site was to continue for decades. Clermont-Ganneau’s collection was acquired by Baron von Ustinow and later by our museum. It is one of the most important collections outside Israel.
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