On the Pilgrims’ Path to the Temple: Monumental Tombs

This article offers a concise and more accessible presentation of themes discussed in: Boaz Zissu and Omri Abadi, “Pilgrimage Pathways: Burial Monuments and Road Networks in Early Roman Jerusalem,” Cercetări Arheologice 31.2 (2024): 347–378.

See, e.g., Mishnah Moed Qatan 1:6.

Nahman Avigad, “The Rock-Carved Façades of the Jerusalem Necropolis,” Israel Exploration Journal 1 (1951): 96–106; Levi Yizhaq Rahmani, “Ancient Jerusalem’s Funerary Customs and Tombs,” Biblical Archeologist 44.3 (1981): 171–177; idem, “Ancient Jerusalem’s Funerary Customs and Tombs,” Biblical Archeologist 45.2 (1982): 109–118; Rachel Hachlili, Jewish Funerary Customs, Practices and Rites in the Second Temple Period (Brill, 2005); Eyal Regev, “Family Burial, Family Structure, and the Urbanization of Herodian Jerusalem,” Palestine Exploration Quarterly 136.2 (2004): 109–131; Orit Peleg-Barkat, “The Relative Chronology of Tomb Façades in Early Roman Jerusalem and Power Displays by the Élite,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 25.1 (2012): 403–418; Dvir Raviv and Boaz Zissu, “Tombs with Decorated Façades in the Judean Countryside,” Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 136.2 (2020): 152–175.

These monumental rock-cut tombs are usually studied as architecture: scholars examine their façades, burial chambers, decoration, and chronology: Maximilian Kon, קברי המלכים [The Tombs of the Kings] (Dvir, 1947); Avigad, “Rock-Carved Façades,” 96–106; Dan Barag, “The 2000–2001 Exploration of the Tombs of Benei Hezir and Zechariah,” Israel Exploration Journal 53.1 (2003): 78–110; Amos Kloner and Boaz Zissu, The Necropolis of Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period (Peeters, 2007); Hachlili, Jewish Funerary Customs. Paradoxically, such work makes the tombs seem more isolated than they really were.

Roll, “Roman Road System,” 136–181; Israel Roll, “Roman Roads,” in Tabula Imperii Romani: Iudaea, Palaestina: Eretz Israel in the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Periods: Maps and Gazetteer, ed. Yoram Tsafrir, Leah Di Segni, and Judith Green (Israel Science Foundation, 1994), 18–19; Chaim Ben David, "כל הדרכים מובילות לירושלים: רשת הדרכים הרומית אימפריאלית סביב לאיליה קפיטולינה" [All Roads Lead to Jerusalem: Aelia Capitolina and the Roman Imperial Road Network], in חידושים בארכיאולוגיה של ירושלים וסביבותיה: קובץ מחקרים [New Studies in the Archaeology of Jerusalem and Its Region: Collected Papers] 7, ed. Guy D. Stiebel, Orit Peleg-Barkat, Doron Ben-Ami, Shlomit Weksler-Bedolah, and Yuval Gadot (Israel Antiquities Authority, 2014), 207–217.

Israel Roll, “The Roman Road System in Judaea,” in The Jerusalem Cathedra 3 (Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi and Wayne State University Press, 1983), 136–181; Shmuel Safrai, Die Wallfahrt im Zeitalter des Zweiten Tempels (Neukirchener, 1981); Martin Goodman, “The Pilgrimage Economy of Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period,” in Jerusalem: Its Sanctity and Centrality to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, ed. Lee I. Levine (Continuum, 1999), 69–76; Yigal Tepper and Yotam Tepper, The Road That Bears the People: Pilgrimage Roads to Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period (Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2013) [Hebrew]; Omri Abadi and Boaz Zissu, “The Purpose of the Ritual Baths in the Tombs of the Kings: A New Proposal,” Electrum 26 (2019): 97–108.

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^{משנה מועד קטן א:ב} רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר בֶּן עֲזַרְיָה אוֹמֵר, אֵין עוֹשִׂין אֶת הָאַמָּה בַתְּחִלָּה בַּמּוֹעֵד וּבַשְּׁבִיעִית, וַחֲכָמִים אוֹמְרִים, עוֹשִׂין אֶת הָאַמָּה בַּתְּחִלָּה בַּשְּׁבִיעִית, וּמְתַקְּנִין אֶת הַמְּקֻלְקָלוֹת בַּמּוֹעֵד. וּמְתַקְּנִין אֶת קִלְקוּלֵי הַמַּיִם שֶׁבִּרְשׁוּת הָרַבִּים וְחוֹטְטִין אוֹתָן. וּמְתַקְּנִין אֶת הַדְּרָכִים וְאֶת הָרְחוֹבוֹת וְאֶת מִקְווֹת הַמַּיִם, וְעוֹשִׂין כָּל צָרְכֵי הָרַבִּים, וּמְצַיְּנִין אֶת הַקְּבָרוֹת, וְיוֹצְאִין אַף עַל הַכִּלְאָיִם.

^{m. Moed Qatan 1:2} R. Eleazar b. Azariah says: One does not newly make a [water] channel during the midfestival and during the Seventh Year. And the Sages say: One may newly make a [water] channel during the Seventh Year, and one may repair damaged ones during the midfestival. And one may repair damaged waterways that are in the public domain, and clean them out. And one may repair roads and open spaces and pools of water, and perform all public needs, and mark graves, and also go out regarding prohibited mixtures.

Translation from The Oxford Annotated Mishnah, ed. Shaye J. D. Cohen, Robert Goldenberg, and Hayim Lapin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), 1.560–561, 1.743–744.

Julius Jotham-Rothschild, “The Tombs of Sanhedria,” Palestine Exploration Quarterly 84.1 (1952): 23–38; Boaz Zissu, “Jerusalem, Shemuel Hanavi Street,” Excavations and Surveys in Israel 14 (1995): 144–145; Amos Kloner, Survey of Jerusalem: The Northwest Sector: Introduction and Indices (Israel Antiquities Authority, 2003); Moshe Ehrenwald, Sanhedriya—the Northern Border Neighbourhood of Jerusalem: History, Sites, People, and Tour Routes (Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 2016) [Hebrew]; Alexander Wiegmann and Yuval Baruch, “A Monumental Burial Cave in the Tel Arza Neighborhood, Jerusalem,” ’Atiqot 106 (2022): 161–176; Orit Peleg-Barkat, “The Façade of the Tel Arza Burial Cave: Architectural Style and a Comparative Study,” ’Atiqot 106 (2022): 177–186.

Roll, “Roman Road System,” 136–181; Amos Kloner, “Stepped Roads in Roman Palestine,” Aram 8.1 (1996): 111–137; Tepper and Tepper, Road That Bears the People.

Avigad, “Rock-Carved Façades,” 96–106; Jotham-Rothschild, “Tombs of Sanhedria,” 23–38; Levi Yizhaq Rahmani, “Jason’s Tomb,” Israel Exploration Journal 17 (1967): 61–100; Dan Barag, “The Tomb of Jason Reconsidered,” in Follow the Wise: Studies in Jewish History and Culture in Honor of Lee I. Levine, ed. Zeev Weiss, Oded Irshai, Jodi Magness, and Seth Schwartz (Eisenbrauns, 2010), 145–161; Peleg-Barkat, “Relative Chronology,” 403–418; Orit Peleg-Barkat, “Interpreting the Uninterpreted: Art as a Means of Expressing Identity in Early Roman Judaea,” in Jewish Art in Its Late Antique Context, ed. Uzi Leibner and Catherine Hezser, Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 163 (Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 27–48.

Nahman Avigad, מצבות קדומות בנחל קדרון [Ancient Monuments in the Kidron Valley] (Bialik Institute, 1954); Boaz Zissu and Avraham S. Tendler, “מבט מחודש על קברי נחל קדרון בתקופה הביזאנטית” [The Kidron Valley Tombs in the Byzantine Period: A Reconsideration], in חידושים בחקר ירושלים [New Studies on Jerusalem] 17, ed. Eyal Baruch, Ayelet Levy-Reifer, and Avraham Faust (Ingeborg Rennert Center, Bar-Ilan University, 2011), 7–43.

Avigad, Ancient Monuments in the Qidron Valley; Peleg-Barkat, “Relative Chronology,” 403–418.

René Beauvery, “La route romaine de Jerusalem à Jericho,” Revue Biblique 64.1 (1957): 72–101; John Wilkinson, “The Way from Jerusalem to Jericho,” The Biblical Archaeologist 38 (1975): 10–24; Roll, “Roman Road System,” 136–181; Boaz Zissu and Amos Kloner, “Cisterns in Ras Tumeim, East of Jerusalem,” in Israel’s Land: Papers Presented to Israel Shatzman on His Jubilee, ed. Joseph Geiger, Hannah M. Cotton, and Guy D. Stiebel (Open University, 2009), 99–113 [Hebrew].

Safrai, Die Wallfahrt; Goodman, “Pilgrimage Economy,” 69–76; Jackie (Yakov) Feldman, “חוויית השיתוף ואישוש הסמכות: העלייה לרגל לירושלים ולמקדש בימי הבית השני” [The Experience of Sharing and Confirmation of Authority: Pilgrimage to Jerusalem and to the Temple during the Second Temple Period], in עלייה לרגל: יהודים, נוצרים, מוסלמים [Pilgrimage: Jews, Christians, Muslims], ed. Ora Limor and Elchanan Reiner (Open University of Israel, 2005), 88–109; Tepper and Tepper, Road That Bears the People; Dvir Raviv and Boaz Zissu, “Rock-Cut Water Cisterns and Ritual Baths Alongside Second Temple Period Pilgrims’ Roads to Jerusalem: A Reexamination,” Speleology and Spelestology 1 (2018): 146–167.

Nahshon Szanton, Moran Hagbi, Joe Uziel, and Donald T. Ariel, “Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem: The Monumental Street from the Siloam Pool to the Temple Mount,” Tel Aviv 46.2 (2019): 147–166.

Amos Kloner, Survey of Jerusalem: The Northeastern Sector (Israel Antiquities Authority, 2002); Kloner, Survey of Jerusalem: The Northwest Sector.

Nurit Shtober-Zisu and Boaz Zissu, “Lithology and the Distribution of Early Roman-Era Tombs in Jerusalem’s Necropolis,” Progress in Physical Geography 42.5 (2018): 628–649.

Road research and recent work on the stepped street and related routes help place these tombs into a wider movement network around Jerusalem. Omri Abadi, “Ancient and More Ancient Roads,” Negev, Dead Sea and Arava Studies 8.1 (2016): 17–24.

Maureen Carroll, Spirits of the Dead: Roman Funerary Commemoration in Western Europe (Oxford University Press, 2006); Valerie M. Hope, Roman Death: The Dying and the Dead in Ancient Rome (Bloomsbury, 2009); John Patterson, “Living and Dying in the City of Rome: Houses and Tombs,” in Ancient Rome: The Archaeology of the Eternal City, ed. James Coulston and Hazel Dodge (Oxbow, 2000), 259–289; Barbara E. Borg, Crisis and Ambition: Tombs and Burial Customs in Third-Century CE Rome (Oxford University Press, 2013).

Maureen Carroll and Jane Rempel, Living through the Dead: Burial and Commemoration in the Classical World (Oxbow, 2011); Amanda Claridge, Rome: An Oxford Archaeological Guide (Oxford University Press, 2010); Lawrence Richardson Jr., A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992); Jutta Stroszeck, Der Kerameikos in Athen: Geschichte, Bauten und Denkmäler im archäologischen Park (Bibliopolis, 2014).

Victor Turner, “Pilgrimages as Social Processes,” in Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society (Cornell University Press, 1974), 166–230; Simon Coleman and John Eade, eds., Reframing Pilgrimage: Cultures in Motion (Routledge, 2004); John Eade, “The Invention of Sacred Places and Rituals: A Comparative Study of Pilgrimage,” Religions 11 (2020): 649.

Kloner and Zissu, Necropolis of Jerusalem; Hachlili, Jewish Funerary Customs; Regev, “Family Burial,” 109–131.

Peleg-Barkat, “Relative Chronology,” 403–418; Peleg-Barkat, “Interpreting the Uninterpreted,” 27–48; Bruce G. Trigger, “Monumental Architecture: A Thermodynamic Explanation of Symbolic Behaviour,” World Archaeology 22.2 (1990): 119–132.