Among the wealthy, from 100 BC till about 500
AD, burial occurred in two stages. Relatives laid the body in the shaft,
closing it. A year later the relatives returned and
found only bones. They gathered these and placed them in a stone box called an
ossuary (big enough to include the femur), which they put with those of the
ancestors in the center of the chamber. Now they could re-use the shaft.
Sometimes the sides of ossuaries are inscribed with the names of the dead.
Among the names found in graves around the city, for example, were Yeshua (Jesus), Simon, Miriam (Mary), Martha and Eleazar (Lazarus), all common names at the time. Several
may be seen at the