The Akeldama Tombs: Three Burial Caves in the Kidron Valley, Jerusalem

Gideon Avni and Zvi Greenhut

Retail Price: $39.95 CenturyOne Price: $29.95 You Save: $10.00 (25%) Availability: Usually ships within 24 hours. Format: Paperback, 129pp. ISBN: 9789654060189 Publisher: Israel Antiquities Authority Pub. Date: 1996 Book Information: Description Reviews About the Author Table of Contents Customer Reviews Find Similar Books Average Customer Review:

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The confluence of the Kidron and Hinnon Valleys, south of the old city of Jerusalem, contains one of Jerusalem’s richest concentrations of rock-hewn tombs.

This area, located on the periphery of the village of Silwan, was one of the main burial grounds of Jerusalem in the first temple period. Numerous tombs were hewn in the lower Kidron Valley.

Several of these were reused much later, either for burial or as shelter for hermits and monks of the large monastic communities which inhabited the Kidron Valley.

Early Christian traditions identify this area with the Potter’s Field, or the Field Of Blood, bought as a burial ground for foreigners by the high priest with Judas’ 30 silver pieces. An alternative version of the tradition relates that this was the field bought by Judas himself after the betrayal.

1	Architecture, Burial Customs and Chronology	1
2	The Ossuaries and the Sarcophagus	41
3	The Ossuary and Sarcophagus Inscriptions	57
4	The Pottery	73
5	The Glass Vessels	95
6	The Coins	105
7	Jewelry and Miscellaneous Objects	109
8	Anthropological Analysis of Human Skeletal Remains	117
	Appendix	123

Archaeology