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Updated: June 15, 2025


For hour after hour she sat still upon the deck, gazing first at the mouth of the rock-hewn temple and the mighty figures which guard it and then at the surrounding desert. Only once did I hear her speak and then she said, 'Beautiful, beautiful!

He had seen them stand on the high battlements, and look out across the plain or into the rock-hewn kopjes for the hosts of the enemy. He had seen them, even when besieged upon that mighty hill, assembling together to worship in the temples they had laboriously raised upon the giant granite ledges. Were they fair, those women of that old, old day?

Borne back to the Capitol, she became at once the centre of a new cult, and from all parts of the city crowded pilgrims to worship at the wonderful shrine, till the Pope, fearing lest those who had found the secret of beauty in a Pagan tomb might forget what secrets Judaea's rough and rock-hewn sepulchre contained, had the body conveyed away by night, and in secret buried.

I found myself staring fixedly at the old and familiar enough symbol of the rayed eye within the triangle. It was not commonplace or familiar set up there in that secret and awesome place and seen by a pale light. There was about it a stark and stern solemnity, such as suggested the winged circle of immortality carved above the rock-hewn doors of the tombs of Egyptian kings.

On they went through various tunnels, of the turnings of which Leonard tried to keep count in his mind, till at length Soa ushered him into a rock-hewn cell that evidently had been prepared for their reception, for on one side of it stood a bed covered with skin blankets, and on the other a table provided with the best food that the country could offer.

Finally, the rock-hewn sepulchre is often classed with the megalithic monuments, and it is therefore frequently mentioned in the following pages. This is justified by the fact that it generally occurs in connection with megalithic structures. The exact relation in which it stands to them will be fully discussed in the last chapter.

First we stood in the vestibule with its tall candelabra; then in the Angels' Chapel, with its fifteen swinging lamps, making darkness visible; then, stooping through a low doorway, we came into the tiny chamber, six feet square, which is said to contain the rock-hewn tomb in which the Saviour of the World was buried. Mass is celebrated here daily by different Christian sects.

Heretics increased with the progress of persecution, and firm conviction took the place of a blind confession of dogmas. "It was not," says Milman, "until Christ was lain in his rock-hewn sepulchre, that the history of Christianity commenced."

If the tomb were a building, and not rock-hewn, the ground in the vicinity was formed into a park or garden, which was planted with all manner of trees. Within the park, at some little distance from the tomb, was a house, which formed the residence of a body of priests, who watched over the safety of the sepulchre.

In South-East Sicily we have the horizontal entrance in the tombs of the rocky gorge of Pantalica, while the vertical shaft is the rule in the tombs of the Plemmirio, only a few miles distant. Two curious facts are noticeable with regard to the distribution of the rock-hewn tombs.

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