Haifa; or, Life in modern PalestineOliphant, Laurence
History
Haifa; or, Life in modern Palestine
Oliphant, Laurence
Palestine -- Description and travel
Before bidding adieu to Jerusalem, it may be interesting to my readers
that I should notice some of the more important discoveries that have
been made there within the last year or two, and which are not,
therefore, to be found in any guide-book. For many of the details I am
indebted to the Palestine Exploration Fund publications. Among these
have been many tombs, some of them of much interest, but none equal to
that to which I have already alluded, as being the most likely of any
which have yet been discovered, to be the tomb of Christ. I have given
at length the reasons in a former letter in support of this presumption.
It is approached by a court cut in the rock seven feet square, and two
stones in this are so placed as to give the idea that they may have held
in place a rolling stone before the door. On the right is a side
entrance leading into a chamber with a single loculus, and thence into a
cave eight feet by ten. If, instead of turning into this, we go straight
on, we descend two steps into a chamber six feet by nine; from either
side wall, and in the back wall of this chamber, are three low passages;
they lead into three other small chambers, each about seven feet long by
six wide, and on each side of each are stone benches on which bodies
could be placed, with a narrow passage between them; so that, in fact,
the whole tomb could contain six bodies. Whether it be the real Holy
Sepulchre or not, it is interesting from the fact that it is the only
Jewish tomb that has ever been found so close to the ramparts of the
modern city on the north, and to the spot which may, with comparative
certainty, be identified with Calvary. It stands not very far distant
from a piece of land which a man bought a year or so ago for fifty
napoleons. On beginning to excavate for the foundations of his house he
came upon some tessellated pavement, carvings, and all the evidences of
remains of some importance. He lost no time in making his discovery
known, and, finding that it stood upon what must have been the site of
the early Christian Church of St. Stephen, to commemorate the spot of
his martyrdom, the Roman Catholics gave the man a thousand napoleons for
his land, and have laid bare the remains with a view to building another
church over them. I examined them with some interest, as it was such a
recent discovery, though the historical interest only dates back to the
year A.D. 460, when it was built by the Empress Eudoxia. The crusaders
found it in ruins, since which time it had become buried, and its site
lost. The whole plan of the church can now be distinctly traced, its
pavements in many places remaining perfect, with the foundations of its
side walls, fragments of columns, etc. The two most interesting features
in connection with it, however, are a slab of fine limestone on which
are the figures of the twelve apostles, each surrounded by a sort of
canopy. They stand six each side of a central figure of a throned
Christ.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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