Pigeons and doves have been used as provider birds, foodstuff (pigeon remains to be thought of a delicacy by means of the neighborhood Arabs), as a resource of guano (for fertilizer), and for cultic reasons (offerings). There are greater than 60 columbaria caves at Marisa, containing a complete of 50,000 to 60,000 niches. the most important columbarium cave, referred to as es-Suk (Arabic for “the marketplace”), has a protracted relevant corridor with branches at correct angles. The elevating of pigeons and doves – and their by-products – was once one other mainstay of Marisa’s financial system. a number of caves surrounding the tel have been used for burials. In 1902, be aware unfold that neighborhood villagers had came across painted tombs and have been defacing the pictures, which they discovered offensive. students who have been established in Jerusalem, John Peters and Hermann Thiersch, visited Marisa and commissioned a qualified photographer to list the work. After being proven the photograph´ graphs, different students linked to the Ecole Biblique (a French Dominican ᪉ seventy nine The Archaeology of the Holy Land four. eleven Columbarium (es-Suk) at Marisa. Courtesy of Zev Radovan/BibleLandPictures. com. institute) in Jerusalem rushed to Marisa and made their very own watercolors of the work. the pictures and watercolors from 1902 are the one surviving documentation of the work, that have in view that disappeared thoroughly (the work now obvious in Tomb I are contemporary re-creations). Tomb I is the bigger and extra elaborately embellished of the 2 tombs. A small starting within the bedrock offers access right into a small, crucial room, from which 3 elongated burial halls department off – the most one on axis and the opposite set perpendicularly on eighty ᪉ The Early Hellenistic interval (332–167 B. C. E. ) four. 12 inside of Tomb I at Marisa having a look in the direction of again wall. Courtesy of Zev Radovan/ BibleLandPictures. com. each side. Burial niches known as loculi (sing. loculus; Hebrew kokh) are carved into the partitions of the halls. every one loculus accommodated a unmarried inhumation (whole corpse), which was once wrapped in a shroud and maybe positioned in a wood coffin. those are the earliest examples of loculi in Palestine, that are a attribute characteristic of tombs in Alexandria and consequently replicate Hellenistic impression at the neighborhood inhabitants. A raised bench carved within the form of a eating sofa in the back of the most burial corridor in Tomb I marked the doorway to 3 burial rooms, which should have contained the continues to be of trendy participants of the group. the world round the front to those rooms used to be painted in imitation of a Doricstyle development, with Doric columns flanking the entrance and a triglyph-andmetope frieze and pediment above. huge, lidded amphoras ( jars) bedecked with ribbons have been painted on each side of the Doric-style construction, possibly representing Greek cremation urns. The wall in entrance of this scene was once flanked by way of work of three-footed tables bearing flaming incense burners. Incense frequently used to be burned in tombs, not just as an providing but additionally to masks the foul odors. Above the incense burners, eagles with outstretched wings held a garland that endured alongside the part partitions, above the loculi.