Tombs in Fausset's Bible Dictionary

Simplicity is the characteristic of Jewish sepulture. No sarcophagus or coffin or separate tomb structure for one individual; usually no pillar (but Jacob set one over Rachel, Genesis 35:20) or mound, no inscription or painting. The coffining and embalming of Joseph as a naturalized Egyptian, and the embalming of Jacob his father in Egypt, are exceptional cases. So also the burning of Saul, when his body was hastily rescued from the Philistines. The body was usually washed, anointed, wrapped in linen, and borne without pageant or prayers to the grave. "Great burnings" of perfumes accompanied the sepulture of kings (Mark 14:8; Mark 16:1; John 19:39, etc.; 2 Chronicles 16:14; Jeremiah 34:5). The Jewish rock tombs are of three classes: (1) Kokim tombs, which have parallel tunnels running in, three or four side by side, from the walls of a rectangular chamber; the bodies lay with their feet toward the chamber, and stone pillows for the heads at the further end; the entrance door is in the face of the cliff; this is the most ancient form of tomb, for the kokim are found sometimes in part destroyed to enlarge the tomb on a different system. (2) Loculus tombs; these often have decorated facades, within the chamber has an arched recess with rock- cut sarcophagus or loculus beneath, the body lying parallel to the side of the chamber; the rolling stone is found with the loculus, hardly ever with the koka tomb; our Lord's sepulchre was therefore a loculus. (3) Sunken tombs are not of Jewish origin. The so- called sepulchres of Joseph and Nicodemus are unmistakably Jewish kokim, rock-hewn. The present chamber in the church of the Holy Sepulchre was formed when the church was built, by cutting away a portion of the original tomb chamber so as to leave a sort of cave, and the floor was leveled at the same time. The side of the kok was cut away, and a canopy of rock left over its bed. In course of time, by pilgrims carrying off relics of rock the kok became entirely isolated, the canopy disappeared, and the tomb assumed its present form (Major Wilson). The angel at the head and the angel at the foot could only have been in a loculus, not a koka tomb. The Mishna (Baba Bathra, 2:9) says, "corpses and sepulchres are separated from the city 50 cubits." The fact that the locuhs tomb was formed out of an original koka tomb, whereas our Lord's loculus tomb was a "new" one "wherein was man never yet laid" (John 19:41), seems to be fatal to the claim of the so-called Holy Sepulchre, independently of the argument of its having been probably inside the walls. The loculi or recesses are about two feet wide by three high. A stone closes the outer end of each loculus. The shallow loculi were used only in the Greek-Roman period, when sarcophagi were introduced, and for embalmed bodies. The deep loculus lengthwise from the cave best suited the unembalmed body, for it whilst the body was decomposing could most easily be shut off with a small stone from the rest of the catacomb (compare John 11:38-40, "take away the stone," and "they took away the stone".) This, and the stone rolled away from out' Lord's tomb (Mark 16:3-4, "the stone was rolled away ... very great"), was that at the mouth of the cave, not as Smith's Dictionary supposes from the small mouth of the loculus inside. The stone, like a cheese or millstone, (generally three feet wide,) rolled right and left of the door (generally two feet wide) in a groove, so that it could be moved to one side when the tomb was opened and rolled back over the mouth in shutting the tomb. (See BURIAL.) The slope was down toward the cave mouth, so that it would roll down there by its own...