ABSALOM'S TOMB. A remarkable monu ment bearing this name makes a conspicuous figure in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, outside Jerusalem; and it has been noticed and described by almost all travellers. It is close by the lower bridge over the Kedron, and is a square isolated block hewn out from the rocky ledge so as to leave an area or niche around it. The body of this monument is about 24 feet square, and is ornamented on each side with two columns and two half columns of the Ionic order, with pillasters at the corners. The architrave exhibits triglyphs and Doric ornaments. The elevation is about IS or 20 feet to the top of the architrave, and thus far it is wholly cut from the rock. But the adjacent rock is here not near so high as in the adjoining tomb of Zecharias (so called), and therefore the upper part of the tomb has been carried up with mason-work of large stones. This consists, first of two square layers, of which the upper one is smaller than the lower ; and then a small dome or cupola runs up into a low spire, which appears to have spread out a little at the top, like an opening flame. This mason-work is per haps 20 feet high, giving to the whole an elevation of about forty feet. There is a small excavated chamber in the body of the tomb, into which a hole had been broken through one of the sides several centuries ago.
The old travellers who refer to this tomb, as well as Calmet after them, are satisfied that they find the history of it in 2 Sam. xviii. IS, which states that Absalom, having no son, built a monu ment to keep his name in remembrance, and that this monument was called Absalom's Hand' — that is, index, memorial, or monument. [HAND.]
With our later knowledge, a glance at this and the other monolithic tomb bearing the name of Zecharias, is quite enough to shew that they had no connection with the times of the persons whose names have been given to them. ' The style of architecture and embellishment,' writes Dr. Robin son, shews that they are of a later period than most of the other countless sepulchres round about the city, which, with few exceptions, are destitute of architectural ornament. Yet, the foreign ecclesiastics, who crowded to Jerusalem in the fourth century, found these monuments here ; and of course it became an object to refer them to persons mentioned in the Scriptures. Yet, from that day to this, tradition seems never to have be come fully settled as to the individuals whose names they should bear. The Itin. Ilieros. in A.D. 333, speaks of the two monolithic monuments as the tombs of Isaiah and Hezekiah. Adamuus, about A.D. 697, mentions only one of these, and calls it the tomb of Jehoshaphat The historians of the Crusades appear not to have noticed these tombs. The first mention of a tomb of Absalom is by Benjamin of Tudela, who gives to the other the name of King Uzziah; and from that time to the present day the accounts of travel lers have been varying and inconsistent' (Biblical Researches, i. 519, 520).—J. K.