Talk:Rock-cut tombs in ancient Israel

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 25 August 2020 and 5 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Fire lily445. Peer reviewers: Turtlesaregr8.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 08:16, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Low Quality
I could hardly slog through this text. It needs to be redone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.191.169.117 (talk) 13:41, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Biblical assertations without historical sources or proper verification
This text quite blatantly accepts and presents Biblical passages as fact without proof or context. The entire text needs to be revamped. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.227.69.133 (talk) 08:57, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Where? It mentions that Jesus was laid in a specific Sepulchre which, regardless of whether or not you believe the story, is what happened according to the bible.  Whether it happened to a real guy or a fictional character or a fictional account of a real guy, etc...doesn't really matter. - 76.105.16.71 (talk) 03:45, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Article name
Sepulchres and rock-cut tombs generally are found in a variety of cultures. As this article refers solely to one such culture, I've changed the name to reflect this. Jimmy Pitt  talk  13:09, 13 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I totally agree. But you were apparently reverted. I found this article, as it was a redir of the Sepulchres-article, which is completely unacceptable, IMO. haven´t people heard of, say, Petra? Huldra (talk) 23:32, 3 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi, Huldra. Sepulchre was redirected to Tomb in 2010. For unclear reason, the talkpage of Sepulchre was not, and I fixed that now. Is there anything else here that needs to be taken care of? Debresser (talk) 18:02, 4 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Gosh, this was actually funny. Sepulchre was redirected to Tomb, yeah......but I was talking of Sepulchres (notice that plural!)....which until some moments ago actually redirected to this article......  (I think the Byzantine court must have been easy to navigate..compared to Wikipedia...)  (Thanks for your redir!)  Cheers, Huldra (talk) 20:02, 4 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I see. Thanks for that. Debresser (talk) 11:47, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

If that form of architecture/building was already practiced among the Canaanites, as the article mentions, why is the title called "ancient Israel" excluding the Canaanite period?--80.10.72.24 (talk) 13:18, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

We need a separate article on Jewish burial types throughout history
Then we could remove from here all the general info - but not before that, since it's not covered anywhere else. Jewish burial redirects to Jewish bereavement! Nothing about the past. We still don't have anything on the Diaspora and modern evolution. Once we do, we can link for instance Old Jewish Cemetery, Prague and Jewish Cemetery in general and much more,. Arminden (talk) 18:21, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Intro reflects total ignorance of evolution
The first two sentences should offer a definition, not confuse things. Whoever wrote it had no real clue about the topic. If it was me several years ago, shame on me.

First Temple period (FTP) tombs had a substantially different design and purpose from Second Temple period (STP) tombs, but there's no mention of that in that messy, misleading intro, which also concentrates on a secondary analysis instead of offering a definition. It should cover both FTP and STP. As of now, nobody knows if it refers to either of them, or both.

FTP rock-cut burials never used ossuaries, these appear late in the STP and disappear soon after, I believe 2nd c. BCE - 2nd c.CE only, and the ossuaries were deposited either in a hollow, or in loci/kokhim/shafts, or in arcosolia (on stone benches under arched ceilings). FTP tombs though had a separate chamber for secondary burial, see Ketef Hinnom: just skeletons placed one next to, or on top of, each other. That distinction is essential. Arminden (talk) 14:55, 29 April 2022 (UTC)


 * The student who messed up some of the Beth Shearim part did a mixed-bag job at the intro. The mess was already there though. He/she removed a presentation which had some good elements re. 1st & 2nd TP elements. I'm highlighting in bold what was useful and isn't now mentioned anymore.
 * Don't know if "hundreds" is correct, so not in bold, but the large number should be mentioned again ("widespread"?).
 * Placing the topic in bold at the beginning is now missing.
 * "Ancient Israel" is as good for me as any such term (Palestine came much later into use, so don't rejoice, and Canaan is too old and wider), but I wish we had it defined somewhere, as it's not about the northern kingdom in Samaria for which there's a redirect.
 * Hundreds of rock-cut tombs were constructed in Israel in ancient times. They were cut into the rock, sometimes with elaborate facades and multiple burial chambers. Some are free-standing, but most are caves. Each tomb typically belonged to a single, wealthy family. Bodies were laid out on stone benches. After a generation, [wrong, at least for the time ossuaries were used: after a year max; maybe during 1TP, I don't know, but probably not as a general rule] the bones were moved to a bone chamber or, later, into ossuaries and the benches used for new burials. Rock tombs were the province of the wealthy; the common people were buried in the ground.
 * Arminden (talk) 19:55, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Genesis (Bible) is not a historical source
The chronologically early books of the Bible narrative are not useful as a source for "history". The proof follows right away in current article text: Abraham is non-historical, and even those who try to place him in a historical or archaeological period, land in the Bronze Age, so not as done here, in the Iron Age (see Cave of Machpelah). Apples and oranges, the usual mess. Arminden (talk) 15:18, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Title is wrong
The rock-cut tombs are in East Jerusalem, which is not recognized as Israel today; and they were in the Kingdom of Judah thousands of years ago, not the Kingdom of Israel. Therefore, the title is wrong; suggestions would be moving either to Rock-cut tombs in ancient Palestine or simply Ancient rock-cut tombs. Dan Palraz (talk) 13:43, 1 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Not necessarily, see my comments at "Intro reflects total ignorance of evolution": neither Canaan nor Palestine are more suitable, but "ancient Israel" needs defining for enWiki purposes. It's being widely used. So are ancient Egypt/Greece/Rome, and none of those is sharply defined. Israel means, more often than not, "related to the descendants of Jacob/Israel, i.e. the 12 tribes, according to the Bible". This makes it perfectly fine, no less than your choice for sure, which came in with classic Greek parlance at the earliest (Herodotus). Ideally this should be linkable to a specific page, but Wiki is still far from ideal. Arminden (talk) 20:06, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Beit She'arim material removed for being fishy, to say the least
(ancient Beit She'arim) ... is supported by its having the "highest concentration of graphite associated with late ancient Levantine Jewish populations." There are a total of 21 excavated catacombs currently excavated, though some experts estimate the remaining undiscovered remains could number in the hundreds or even thousands,...
 * 1) graphite in Beit She'arim?! BS, no such thing.
 * 2) Cited article is totally unrelated, deals with Iron Age Judah, not Late Roman & Byz. Galilee. Some silly joke?
 * 1000s of catacombs could take in 10s if not 100s of 1000s of dead. Macabre joke?

... with as much as two-thirds of the catacombs' geographic spread remaining to be explored. The graves are widely considered to be exceptional to the region, but others note that many of the death practices present are consistent with conventional Levantine practices.
 * 1) 21 + another 2/3 = maybe 60+. Not "hundreds or even thousands".
 * 2) Unsourced
 * 1) Somewhat nonsensical: exceptional - how? Otherwise how can we see if they are conventional or exceptional?
 * 2) Unsourced

Reference: Arminden (talk) 18:29, 8 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I just went through the edit history. It was a student from the US who messed things up,, in Nov 2020 (maunly here; stopped editing right after dropping by here). The clarify tags in the lead are also connected to Fire lily edits, but the confusion was there already (we have 3 distinct periods: Canaanite, Israelite, and Jewish from 2nd Temple period followed by Late Roman + Early Byzantine; the intro describes characteristics from single periods as if they covered all periods).
 * Fire lily edited an Egyptian tomb art. too: it should be checked for similar mistakes. Arminden (talk) 19:10, 8 March 2024 (UTC)