Tomb I Steps to Entrance

View of the steps leading up to the entrance to the Tomb of Apollophanes.

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This was the Tomb of Apollophanes who was the head of the Sidonian colony at Marisa for 33 years.  It was constructed in the late third century BC and was used by subsequent generations.  The name is known from one of the inscriptions found inside the tomb.  See below for the discovery of the tomb and its reconstruction in 1993.

This tomb and Tomb II were discovered in 1902.  Local Muslims had looted the tombs defacing the human images that were painted on the walls of the tombs.   At that time hasty drawings of the tombs I and II were made and, under difficult conditions, black and white photographs were taken.  Scholars from the École Biblique in Jerusalem visited the caves and also made sketches along with watercolor paintings and they recorded the inscriptions.  These were published by the PEF in 1905.

New paintings, based upon the above materials, were made on fiberglass and installed in the tombs in 1993.

Jacobson, David M. “Marisa Tomb Paintings — Recently Discovered Photos Show Long–Lost Details.” Biblical Archaeology Review 30, no. 2 (2004): 25–39.

Kloner, Amos. “Underground Metropolis—The Subterranean World of Maresha.” Biblical Archaeology Review 23, no. 2 (1997): 24-35, 67.