In the walls of the vestibules of some of the larger and more famous ancient tombs are niches cut for the placing of lamps by devotees. At Tibneh the reputed tomb of Joshua has a vestibule which is twenty-nine and a half feet wide and over ten feet high. Its roof was supported originally, on the front, by four squared columns twenty-five inches through, cut from the rock of the place. Two of the columns, the one at either end, are engaged, and two are free. The three walls of the vestibule resemble those of a columbarium, having two hundred seventy lamp-niches, all fairly uniform, in even rows and with sloping tops. A little entrance two feet high and nineteen inches wide leads into the tomb chamber, which is thirteen feet eight inches by thirteen feet two inches in dimensions and has fifteen kokim.
At the tomb of Joseph, shown near Nâblus, there is a well-kept modern room enclosing the tomb. A dumb man was in charge when we visited the place. On receiving a bishlik, as we were leaving, he emitted the most weird sounds of anger and flung the coin on the pavement in pretended disgust.
Places once consecrated to holy purposes are apt to retain their sanctity. This is seen in the regard that the peasants have for the shrines and places of religious significance to any former people. The old church at Sebasṭîyeh (Samaria) is now a mosk. The ruin of the Crusaders’ Church at el-Bîreh is venerated by Moslem and Christian. A man essayed, the story goes, to build a house out of blocks taken from this ruin, but his house fell, not once, but twice, a sign according to the native interpretation of the impiety of the man’s act in taking those stones. In one of the apses of the church at eṭ-Ṭayyibeh there was a chromo picture on a board before which some Christians of that village burned oil in the little lamps. In the old Greek church at Râm Allâh, no longer in ecclesiastical use, are seen the lamps used by worshipers who reverence the old site superstitiously. In another part of the village there is a room, evidently once a mosk, which is now a shrine known as el-Khalîl. It is at the left of the west end of the long market street. It is fronted by a little courtyard in which are a mulberry-tree and the capitals of a couple of columns. The door of the room is at the northwest corner; at the northeast corner is an outside stairway by which one may go up to the roof. Over the door, serving as a lintel, is a piece of worked stone, evidently a small column. It is ten inches wide and forty-three inches long, including a round stone ball cut on the right-hand end, which measures six and a half inches. A raised panel design, twenty-nine inches long and three inches wide, is carved on the side. Into the right side of the doorway is built a voussoir of an arch. There are two pieces of fluted stone built into the wall of the building. In the northeast corner of the wall the corner-stones are of good size, the largest being twenty-seven by fourteen by eleven inches. The next stone under this largest is bossed. The upper part of the door works in a stone socket. Inside, the room is well plastered, the ceiling rather low, perhaps fifteen feet from the floor. A column is built into the east wall near the southeast corner. It is nine feet and four inches tall. There is a _ḳibleh_ or prayer-niche in the south wall of the room. It is about thirty-nine inches deep and fifty-eight and a half inches wide. The outer facing of the ḳibleh is two feet wide on each side. In the west wall is a squarish recess like a closet. In the east wall are three little boards thrust in endwise and projecting to hold lamps. A large jar with a broken top contained some water. There were eighty-nine lamps in the room, of the little virgin-lamp style, for holding oil. The women of Râm Allâh are responsible for these, as it is their custom to go to this room and light lamps and offer a prayer to Ibrahîm Khalîl Allâh (_i. e._, Abraham, the friend of God[109]) for the recovery of a sick child. Some say that Thursday, late in the afternoon, is the favorite time for women to go there and pray to el-Khalîl (_i. e._, the friend or confidant, abbreviated from the above title). The building and yard are supposed to belong to Abraham. If a child too young or too ill-bred to observe the proprieties should molest the mulberries on the tree in the yard any passer-by would be apt to cry out to it to desist lest el-Khalîl should destroy it. Anything placed within the mosk or yard is considered as under the protection of el-Khalîl and perfectly safe from theft. Sometimes a quantity of lime is left in temporary store in this safe place. Perhaps the large jar that we saw with water in it had been left there by some one who had been working in lime.