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Eze_32:17-23
This writer well remarks that “the numerous references in the sacred Scriptures, to sepulchers supposed to be well peopled, would be misapplied to nations that burned their dead, as the Greeks and Romans did; or to those who committed them to rivers, as the Hindus; or to those who expose them to birds of prey, as the Parsees; nor would the phrase ‘to go down to the sides of the pit,’ be strictly applicable to, or properly descriptive of, that mode of burial which prevails among ourselves—single graves, admitting one body only, in width or in length, having no openings on the sides to which the bodies may be said to go down.” On this we may observe, without at present entering into further explanations, that the frequently-recurring expression in this passage, “down to the sides of the pit,” has a very inadequate explanation in the sepulchral chambers—natural or excavated caverns—in the sides of which were recesses for the corpses. Many sepulchers of this description exist in Palestine, and in different parts of Western Asia.
The first reference is to Asshur in Assyria, “whose graves are set in the sides of the pit.” It might have been hoped that the recent discoveries at Nineveh would throw some light on this subject. In this hope we have diligently explored the French and English books which treat of these discoveries, and have carefully examined all the engravings they contain, as well as the actual sculptures in this country. But the subject is as much in the dark as before. Layard, in acknowledging this, can only conjecture, from the resemblance between the two nations in other respects, that the funeral ceremonies of the Assyrians and Persians were similar. This is no more than we long ago maintained, and the conjecture is corroborated by the very analogous terms in which the prophet speaks next of Elam, or Persia. That the Persians, and also the Babylonians, had modes of sculpture analogous to those of the Assyrians, is further confirmed by the resemblance in the many existing sepulchral sites upon the tombs on the Tigris and Euphrates, some of which we have ourselves had the opportunity of examining with great interest and attention. These contain urns, usually of earthenware, lined with bitumen and sometimes glazed, and in which, when opened, bones and dust are found. They are discovered in almost every situation—in mounds of ruins, in the cliffs on rivers, and even in the thick walls of ancient towns and fortresses. In some places, where the bank had fallen away, or where the stream has cut it perpendicularly, its steep face shows multitudes of such urns, from the top of the cliff down to the water’s edge. With the knowledge that each urn contains the mortal remains of a human being, who lived in ancient times, and with the recollection that what we witnessed were but the edges of broad layers of urns, the sight was very awful, suggesting such an idea of the exceeding populousness of the grave, as we have never found any other occasion of realizing with equal force. “Asshur is there and all her company”—“There is Elam, and all her multitude round about her grave.”
The places in which these urns occur, in every variety of form and size, with the manner in which they are arranged, sometimes in regular rows, and sometimes not, and occasionally with lines of brickwork connected with them, many sanction the idea suggested by one of the Parsee books, called the Desatir, that most of the public buildings had within their mass receptacles of various kinds, such as cellars, niches, etc., for these sepulchral urns. Sepulchral they certainly are, from the nature of the contents; but as few of them are large enough to contain the adult human body, the corpse could not have been deposited entire, but must have been subjected to some process of decomposition. The common statement, that bodies were not burnt in this region, is incorrect, for we have ourselves seen bones that bore manifest traces of the action of fire. But this was not always, perhaps not often the case; and we incline to think, that the curious old book, to which we have referred, supplies a sufficient and satisfactory explanation. This work consists of a short ancient text with a longer and more recent comment. The passage bearing on the present subject is one of curious interest, not only from the accounts it gives of the modes of sepulture in those regions, but from the explanation it suggests of some passages of Scripture bearing on the subject. The lines marked in italics seem to afford a sufficient explanation of the passage before taken in connection with the particulars already furnished from our personal observation. The text is simply this: “A corpse you may place in a vase of aquafortis, or consign it to the fire, or to the earth.” The appended comment is this: “The usage of the Fersendajians (Persians) regarding the dead was this. After the soul had departed, they washed the body in pure water, and dressed it in clean and perfumed vestments. They then put it into a vase of aquafortis, and when the body was dissolved, carried the liquid far from the city, and poured it out; or else they burned it in the fire, after attiring it as hath been said; or they made a dome and formed a deep pit within it, which they built and whitened, with stone, brick, and mortar; and, on its edges niches were constructed and platforms erected, on which the dead were deposited: or they buried a vase in the earth, enclosing [the remains of] the corpse therein; or they buried it in a coffin in the ground. But in the estimation of the Fersendajians, the most eligible of all these was the vase of aquafortis.” And with reason, we should think. It is the most poetical and suggestive mode of sepulture we ever met with, and brings to mind the saying of the wise woman of Tekoah: “We are as water spilt upon the ground, that cannot be gathered up again.”
We know, however, that the custom of rock-sepulture was in use among the Persians for their most distinguished dead.