156 CHAPTER FOURChristian catacombs at Rome, was alsofound inthe necropolis. The archway
design, too, is inscrutable (it could be an image of a Torah shrine, the ark of
the covenant,the arched portals typical of the necropolis, the gateway to eter-
nal life, the gateway to the holy of holies, etc.) but apparently “Jewish.”^96 In
several of the catacombs (as also in Jason’s tomb in Jerusalem, first century
B.C.E.; Marisa, third-second centuriesB.C.E.) are graffiti of boats. Is this Char-
on’s ferry? Many Jews were buried, like Greeks, with Charon’s fare in their
mouths.^97 But some of the graffiti seem to be of galleys rather than ferries. Do
they, then, imply a conception of the grave as a passageway, without specific
referencetoGreekmythology?Ordothey,assomehavesuggested,commem-
oratethemercantileactivitiesofthedeceased?Ifso,whyarenootheroccupa-
tions similarly commemorated? Finally, throughout the necropolis there are
manycrudehumanfigures,mostofthemlittlemorethanstickfigures,carved
or scratched on the walls, among them several horses and riders in catacomb
1andanapparentgladiatorincatacomb4.Theoddestofthesehumanfigures
isincatacomb3,areliefofaman(?)withamenorahonhishead.Sincemost
of these items I find completely opaque, apart from the fact that the graffiti
(as opposed to the reliefs) are undatable and some could be medieval, I will
say no more about them. I have briefly described some of them precisely to
convey something of the impenetrability of much of the most “Jewish” of the
iconographiclanguageofeventhismost“Jewish”ofhighimperialburialsites.
Surely the most poignant of the structural items at Beth Shearim is the
lintel over the entrance to the western hall of catacomb 19.^98 Several lintels
atBethShearimaredecoratedwithrosettesandthelike,butthisoneisunique
in being decorated with a relief of something like a Gorgon or Medusa mask
(as indicated by the prominence of the ringletted hair), resembling the Gor-
gon, Dionysiac, tragic and Satyr masks common on Roman sarcophagi (in-
cludingonefromBethShearim)andfoundcarvedonthedoorofacontempo-
raneous burial chamber in Jaffa.^99 To the right of the mask is scratched the
(^96) Though obviously in some cases this is the counterpart of the common pagan image of the
deity visible inside his or her schematically represented shrine. For an extensive treatment, see
B. Goldman,The Sacred Portal: A Primary Symbol in Ancient Judaic Art(Detroit: Wayne State
University Press, 1966).
(^97) See Z. Greenhut, “The ‘Caiaphas’ Tomb in North Talpiyot, Jerusalem,”Atiqot21 (1992):
70–71; and see W. Horbury’s discussion of the practice: “The ‘Caiaphas’ Ossuaries and Joseph
Caiaphas,”PEQ126 (1994): 34–35. However, L. Y. Rahmani argued that most coins found in
Jewish burials cannot be proved to have been meant as Charon’s fare: “A Note on Charon’s
Obol,”Atiqot22 (1993): 149–50.
(^98) BethShearim3.81–82.
(^99) For masks on sarcophagi, see Guntram Koch and Hellmut Sichtermann,Ro ̈mische Sarko-
phage(Munich: Beck, 1982). For the tomb door, seeNEAEHL, s.v., photograph. See also the
discussion in L.Y. Rahmani, “Five Lead Coffins from Israel,”IEJ42 (1992): 82. The closest
parallels to the relief fro mBeth Sheari mare to mb decorations at Petra and Medain Saleh fro m
a slightly earlier period: see J. S. McKenzie, A. T. Reyes, and A. Schmidt-Colinet, “Faces in the
Rock at Petra and Medain Saleh,”PEQ130 (1998): 35–50; with an appendix by J. R. Green.