'Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, from January 1847 to May 1849. Edited by the Secretary. Volume VIII.' [‎351] (460/496)

mans) under a Sheikh.—Part of the foundations of its old wall of hewn
stone can still be traced: and a little to the south of the village is a
large building of more modern date, containing hewn stones, some of
which are in the style called “ Frosted rustic” Here is also the capital
of a Corinthian pilaster. On the west close to the village is a rock-se
pulchre. Four steps cut in the limestone lead down a narrow passage
to the pigeon-hole entrance, through which I drew myself with some
difficulty into a sepulchral chamber about six feet square. On three
side were crypts shaped thus cut into the rock: in one of
the crypts two troughs for corpses were excavated in the rock floor,—
but the two others contained only one trough. Here probably was the
family burial-place of one of the Levite priests.* Jeremiah himself, who
was the son of Hilkiali a priest of Anathoth, was not buried at this his
native city, but took refuge in Egypt, with Baruck and a great number
of the Israelites, from the tyrannies of the Assyrians under Nebuchad
nezzar. He is supposed to have died in Egypt, and it is said that his
bones were carried by Alexander the Great to Alexandria.!
Not far from the rock sepulchre is a cistern supported by a square
pillar with a square base, all hewn out of the rock. A few olive and fig
plantations in the vicinity of this village are strikingly contrasted with
the almost treeless aspect of the surrounding cauntry.
Such is the present desolate state of Anathoth. (1846.)
The denunciations of the prophet, who here in early youth was per
secuted by his fellow citizens—“ the men of Anathoth,” who sought his
life, saying, “ Prophesy not in the name of the Lord, that thou die not
by our hand,”—seems completely fulfilled. “ Thus saith the Lord of
hosts ; Behold, I will punish them: the young men shall die by the
sword: their sons and their daughters shall die by famine: And there
shall be no remnant of them, for I will bring evil upon the men of Ana
thoth, even the year of their visitation.”!
After Jeremiah, Anathoth is only once alluded to in the old Testa
ment, about B. C. 443, when Nehemiah mentions it with Nob, Ana-
mah, Michmash, Geba, and other places still inhabited by the children
* Jeremiah, i. 1. “ The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, of the Priests
that were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin. ,,
t Carpzov. Introduction, part 3rd, page 13$>
X Jeremiah, xi, 21, 22, 23,