All round the sides of this mountain, which I conceive to be the real Sion of the Scriptures, and particularly on that facing towards the valley of Hinnom, are numerous excavations, which may have been habitations of the living, but are more generally taken for sepulchres of the dead. Many of these fell under our own observation, as may be seen in the account of our excursion round the city; but Dr. Clarke has described them still more fully. We did not perceive, with this traveller, any "marvellous art" in their execution, nor "immensity" in their size; but these are terms of very indefinable import. They were numerous and varied, both in their sizes and forms; and I think, with that traveller, that of such a nature as these were indisputably the tombs of the sons of Heth, of the kings of Israel, of Lazarus, and of Christ *, as has been proved by Shaw †, and elucidated by Quaresmius in his Dissertations concerning ancient Sepulchres.‡

on the lofty ascent of Mount Sion; on the north side, the buildings of the lower town covered the spacious summit of Mount Acra; and a part of the hill, distinguished by the name of Moriah, and levelled by human industry, was crowned with the stately temple of the Jewish nation. Gibbon, vol. iv. c. 23. p. 99.

Travels, vol. ii. p. 550. + Travels, p. 263. London, 1757. + Vide cap. vii. (De forma et qualitate veterum Sepulchrorum), Elucid. T. S. Quaresmii, tom. ii. p. 127. Antw. 1639.

It has been asserted that the cemeteries of the ancients were universally excluded from the precincts of their cities; and this is said to be evident from a view of all ancient cities in the East, as well as from the accounts left by authors concerning their mode of burial. This, however, though true of the Greek and Roman settlements, is not accurate when said of Hebrew towns; and that it was not the case at Jerusa lem, there is the most unequivocal evidence, since we have accounts both of royal and of private tombs within the city. "So David slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David *," which is Mount Sion. "And Ahaz slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David." Though, it is added in another place, that, from the wickedness of his reign, and perhaps chiefly on account of his idolatry, though they buried him in the city, even in Jerusalem, yet "they brought him not into the sepulchres of the kings of Israel." t

Now, in the hill commonly called Sion, at Jerusalem, over one part of which the present wall of the city actually goes, there are no sepulchres known. Those found on the north of the city,

* 1 Kings, ii. 10.

2 Chronicles, xxviii. 27.

† 2 Kings, xvi. 20.

and called the tombs of the kings, must have been without the town, and are seated almost in a plain. They are even now at a good distance from the northern boundary of the modern city, notwithstanding that the town has been thought to have encreased so much in that direction, as to include places formerly without it. Both their situation and their style of ornament make it highly probable that these were the monuments of Helena, Queen of Adiabene, and the royal caverns of Josephus; but it is, for the. same reasons, quite certain that these were not the sepulchres of Israel and Judah within Mount Sion.

What then are the excavations around the sides of this mountain to be considered, if not those very sepulchres in question? It is said by Dr. Clarke, in his account of these same caves, "The sepulchres we are describing, carry, in their very nature, satisfactory evidence of their being situated out of the ancient city, as they are now out of the modern." * What this evidence is, that they carry in their very nature, it is not said; but probably it is meant, by syllogistic inference, that, since the sepulchres of the ancients were universally excluded from the precincts of their cities, and since these are

* Travels, vol. ii. p. 551.

indisputably sepulchres, they must therefore have been situated somewhere without the town.

But the first assertion being ungrounded, at least as applied to Jerusalem, the inference is consequently unwarranted. It seems equally inconsistent, too, while endeavouring to identify this hill itself with Mount Sion, which was distinguished by the presence of the tabernacle, called by pre-eminence the Holy Hill, and enclosed as the city of David, within the common boundary, to make the excavations around its sides without the city, while every part of the hill itself was within; yet these are the conclusions to which the argument set up by that writer necessarily lead.

In speaking of the hill commonly called Mount Sion, a portion of which is covered by the walls and buildings of the present Jerusalem, Pococke expresses the same disappointment that must be felt by every one in searching there for the sepulchres of the Jewish kings. "There were also," says he, "several remarkable things on Mount Sion, of which there are no remains, as the gardens of the kings, near the pool of Siloam, where Manasseh and Amon, kings of Judah, were buried; and it is probable this was the fixed burying-place of the kings, it being the ancient eastern custom to bury in

their own houses or gardens." * "And Manasseh slept with his fathers, and was buried in the garden of his own house, in the garden of Uzza. And Amon was buried in his sepulchre, in the garden of Uzza, and Josiah his son reigned in his stead.” +

If, after all this, there remained any further "doubt on the identity of Mount Sion with this hill, on the south of the valley of Hinnom, it would be removed by the inscriptions which have been found deeply carved on the fronts and sides of the sepulchres there. One of these contains the following Greek words, legibly written; + THC AгIAC CIWN, "Of the Holy Sion," in two places. The affix of the cross ‡ proves it to have been a Christian inscription, if it be coeval with the letters in point of age. The work of the excavation itself might, however, have been Jewish; and indeed, from its situation on Mount Sion, and its numerous subterranean chambers and apartments, it might have been one of the early sepulchres of the Israelites, used for Christian burial after Sion had become desolate. That of David, which

* Pococke's Travels, vol. ii. part 1. p. 9.

+ 2 Kings, xxi. 18-26. and Josephus, Ant. Jud. 1. x. c. 3. 2.

Clarke's Travels, vol. ii. p. 553.