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Tomb of Eshmunazar II
About
Sidon's own King Eshmunazar II was buried in a black stone sarcophagus inscribed with a lengthy Phoenician royal epitaph. Workers found the tomb at Magharat Abloun, a rock-cut necropolis southeast of the city, in January 1855. The inscription cursed any future violator of the grave and recorded the king's grants of land from the Persian crown. The sarcophagus lay sealed in Sidon's necropolis for roughly two thousand years before its rediscovery.
What happened here
Roman burial is a family matter conducted in public. The dead are carried out of town, cremated or laid in the ground, and mourned with formal noise; the funeral of anyone important is a procession with masks of the ancestors carried by hired men. The tomb that follows is designed to be read by strangers on the road: name, age, offices, sometimes a trade shown in relief, often a line addressed directly to the passer-by. Ordinary people appear here as they nowhere else — a baker with his ovens carved on the front, a freedman naming the woman he could finally marry, a child's age given in days. Anniversaries bring the family back with food and wine.
Sources
Nearby
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