page_title: Joseph's Tomb
section_title: 19th-century accounts
hierarchical_section_title: Joseph's Tomb / History of the identification and use of the site / 19th-century accounts
caption_attribution_description: English: Joseph's Tomb, Nablus
context_page_description: Joseph's Tomb is a funerary monument located at the eastern entrance to the valley that separates Mounts Gerizim and Ebal, 300 metres northwest of Jacob's Well, on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Nablus. It has been venerated throughout the ages by Samaritans, for whom it is the second holiest site, by Jews, by Christians, and by Muslims, some of whom view it as the location of a local medieval sheik Yusef Al-Dwaik.
  The site is near Tell Balata, the site of Shakmu in the Late Bronze Age and later biblical Shechem. One biblical tradition identifies the general area of Shechem as the resting-place of the biblical patriarch Joseph and his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh. Multiple locations over the years have been viewed as the legendary burial place of Joseph. Post-biblical records regarding the location of Joseph's Tomb somewhere around this area date from the beginning of the 4th-century AD. The present structure, a small rectangular room with a cenotaph, dates from 1868, and is devoid of any trace of ancient building materials. While some scholars, such as Kenneth Kitchen and James K.
context_section_description: William Cooke Taylor (1838) describes the biblical parcel of ground Jacob gave to Joseph as situated on plain of Mukhna, and identifies the tomb as an oriental weli structure at the entrance to the valley of Nablus, to the right near the base of Mt Ebal. The sarcophagus, he suggests, lies underneath or somewhere else in the vicinity of this plain, and comments:
  The present monument ... is a place of resort, not only for Jews and Christians, but Mohammedans and Samaritans; all of whom concur in the belief that it stands on the vertiable spot where the patriarch was buried.
  In 1839, the Jewish traveller Loewe based his identification of the tomb as near Jacob's Well by a topographical argument. Scripture, he argued, calls the place neither an emek (valley) nor a shephelah (plain), but a 'portion of field' (chelkat hasadeh), and concluded: "in the whole of Palestine there is not such another plot to be found, a dead level, without the least hollow or swelling in a circuit of two hours."
  In 1839, it was recorded that Jews frequently visited the tomb and that many inscriptions in Hebrew were visible on the walls. The site was "kept very neat and in good repair by the bounty of Jews who visited it".
  John Wilson (1847) writes that the tomb lies about two or three hundred yards to the north of Jacob's Well, across the valley. He describes it as "a small solid erection in the form of a wagon roof, over what is supposed to be the patriarch's grave, with a small pillar or altar at each of its extremities, sometimes called the tombs of Ephraim and Manasseh, and the middle of an enclosure without a covering. Many visitors names, in the Hebrew and Samaritan characters, are written on the walls of this enclosure." One of the inscriptions is said to intimate the tomb's repair by a Jew from Egypt, Elijah son of Meir, around 1749. Wilson adds that "The Jews of Nablus take upon themselves the duty of keeping the tomb in order. They applied to us for a subscription to aid in making some repairs and we complied with their request". These Hebrew and Samaritan inscriptions were still visible on the white plastered walls as late as 1980, as were small lamps in an internal recess, probably donated by Jews during the 18th and 19th centuries.
  Rabbi Joseph Schwarz (1850) who had lived in Palestine for 16 years, identified the village of Abulnita, "about 2 English miles east of Shechem", as the site "where Joseph lies buried". Western travellers to Palestine in the 19th century described their impressions of the site in travelogues. John Ross Browne (1853) writes: "We also visited the reputed site of Joseph's Tomb. A rude stone building covers the pretended sepulcher; but the best authorities deny that there was any evidence that Joseph was buried here." Howard Crosby also visited the site during 1851. He designated it, "the so-called tomb of Joseph", describing it as "a plain white Santon's tomb, or Wely, such as is everywhere seen in Mohammedan countries, excepting that this one is roofless, and consequently lacks the usual white dome. In the interior, a vine grows from a corner, and spreads upon a trellis over the tomb, forming a pleasant bower." Louis Félicien Joseph Caignart de Saulcy and Edouard de Warren (1853) describe it as "a small Mussulman oually (weli, i.e. chapel) ... said to be the tomb of Joseph", noting it was just to the east of what the Arabs called Bir-Yakub, Jacob's Well. Hackett noted in 1857 that the tomb is placed diagonally to the walls, instead of parallel, and found "the walls of the interior covered with the names of pilgrims, representing almost every land and language; though the Hebrew character was the most prominent one".  Thomson noted in 1883 that "the entire building is fast crumbling to ruin, presenting a most melancholy spectacle". Being exposed to the weather, "it has no pall or votive offering of any kind, nor any marks of respect such as are seen at the sepulchres of the most insignificant Muslim saints." During the late 19th century, sources report the Jewish custom of burning small articles such as gold lac
caption: Photograph, 1868
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