Josephus speaks of monuments of the Patriarchs as existing in his day (B. J. iv. 9, 7), but is silent as to the enclosure. Had it, however, existed in the Old Testament times, we should surely find some record of its origin in the Bible; nor does it seem likely that it was built later than Herod's time, for the earliest Christian pilgrim in 333 A.D. found it already standing.
The great walls are surmounted by two high white minarets on the south-east and north-west. The southern portion of the area is occupied by a Gothic twelfth-century building, presumably a church; the nave has a pointed roof and clerestory windows, the aisles are lower and their roofs rest against the fortress wall. Within are the cenotaphs of Isaac and Rebecca, supposed to stand above their true graves in the cavern. Outside the building, in separate chambers, are the tombs of Abraham and Sarah, flanking the entrance. On the north side of the open court Jacob and Leah have similar cenotaphs, covered, like the rest, with richly embroidered green cloths. A modern building is erected against the western fortress wall on the exterior. This is called the Tomb of Joseph, whose bones are said, by Josephus, to have been removed hither from Shechem--a story no doubt due to Jewish jealousy of the shrine at Shechem, which was in the hands of the Samaritans.
Cenotaphs like those in the present building are mentioned as early as 700 A.D. Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela states, however, that Jews were able in his days to descend, through an iron door, into the cavern, which was in three compartments, and where the real tombs were shown. The twelfth-century writers, in describing the fortress, which they quaintly name the "Castle of St. Abraham,â also call the cavern Spelunca Duplex, "the double caveâ--a title probably derived from the Hebrew Machpelah, signifying "the place dividedâ: Sir John Maundeville, in 1322, states that one chamber was above the other.
An idea appears to have existed at an early period that Hebron was not originally built on its present site, but on the hill north-west of the modern town. Arculphus mentions this in 700 A.D., and Marino Sanuto in the fourteenth century says the same, both apparently referring to ancient ruins then visible in the direction of the present site of Abraham's Oak. There are traces of the same theory in the writings of many intermediate visitors, and the Bible narrative itself seems to require a position opposite the Haram, if the true Machpelah be beneath that enclosure, for the cave was not in Hebron, but in a field "before Mamre--the same is Hebronâ (Gen. xxiii. 19). Thus, though a new city may have grown up around the sacred tombs, even in Jewish times, the original Hebron, Mamre, or Kirjath-Arba of Abraham, must have had a different site; and it may be noted, that the principal springs, and many of the rock-cut tombs dating from the Jewish period, are now found north-west of Hebron.