The Tomb of Zechariah is an ancient stone monument in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

that is considered in Jewish tradition to be the tomb of Zechariah ben Jehoiada. It is a few meters from the

Tomb of Absalom The Tomb of Absalom (), also called Absalom's Pillar, is an ancient Rock-cut tombs in ancient Israel, monumental rock-cut tomb with a conical roof located in the Kidron Valley in Jerusalem, a few metres from the Tomb of Zechariah and the Tomb of ...

and adjacent to the Tomb of Benei Hezir.

Architectural description

The monument is a

monolith A monolith is a geological feature consisting of a single massive stone or rock, such as some mountains. Erosion usually exposes the geological formations, which are often made of very hard and solid igneous or metamorphic rock. Some monolit ...

—it is completely carved out of the solid rock The lowest part of the monument is a crepidoma, a base made of three steps. Above it there is a

stylobate In classical Greek architecture, a stylobate () is the top step of the crepidoma, the stepped platform upon which colonnades of temple columns are placed (it is the floor of the temple). The platform was built on a leveling course that fl ...

, upon which there is a decoration of two ionic columns between two half ionic columns and at the corners there are two

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

s. The capitals are of the Ionic order and are decorated with the

egg-and-dart Egg-and-dart, also known as egg-and-tongue, egg-and-anchor, or egg-and-star, is an Ornament (architecture), ornamental device adorning the fundamental quarter-round, convex ovolo profile of molding (decorative), moulding, consisting of alternating ...

decoration. The upper part of the monument is an

Egyptian ''Egyptian'' describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of year ...

-style

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...

upon which sits a pyramid. The fine masonry and decoration that is visible on the western side, the facade, is only the western side. On the other sides of the tomb, the work is extremely rough and unfinished; it seems as if the work was stopped before the artists could finish the job.Rachel Hachlili, ''Jewish funerary customs, practices and rites in the Second Temple period'' (2005), page 132

Identification

Traditional identification

According to a

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

tradition, which is first suggested by the 1215 AD writings of Menahem haHebroni, this is the tomb of the priest Zechariah Ben Jehoiada, a figure that the

Book of Chronicles The Book of Chronicles ( , "words of the days") is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Chronicles) in the Christian Old Testament. Chronicles is the final book of the Hebrew Bible, concluding the third section of the Jewish Heb ...

records to have been stoned: :''And the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, which stood above the people, and said unto them, Thus saith God, Why transgress ye the commandments of the Lord, that ye cannot prosper? because ye have forsaken the Lord, he hath also forsaken you. And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the Lord''

Scientific identification and dating

The style of the construction, which includes

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

details such as Ionic columns, is similar to that of the Tomb of Benei Hezir, and several authors think that they are near-contemporary with one another; scholars specialising in

funerary A funeral is a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect th ...

practices and monuments have ascribed a first-century CE date to the tomb. It has been proposed that the ''Tomb of Zechariah'' is actually the ''nefesh'' (a Jewish funerary monument similar to the Greek ''

stele A stele ( ) or stela ( )The plural in English is sometimes stelai ( ) based on direct transliteration of the Greek, sometimes stelae or stelæ ( ) based on the inflection of Greek nouns in Latin, and sometimes anglicized to steles ( ) or stela ...

'') for the Tomb of Benei Hezir,Samuel Rocca, ''Herod's Judaea'', (2008), page 365 which is accessed from a rock-cut passage adjacent to the monument, and which states that it has an adjacent ''magnificent structure'', an item not otherwise identified.

Gallery

File:Tombe Du St. Jacquesch De ... -309 LACMA M.2008.40.265.jpg, 1870 photo by Felix Bonfils showing the Tomb of Zechariah to the right of the Tomb of Benei Hezir File:The tomb of Zechariah in the valley of Jehoshaphat, Jerusalem. Wellcome V0049399.jpg, As depicted in David Roberts' '' The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia'' File:The Sepulchre of Zachariah - Pococke Richard - 1745.jpg, The Sepulchre of Zachariah - Pococke Richard - 1745

References