Funerary Artifacts from Roman Ashkelon and the Rockefeller Collections

In 2019, an excavation carried out at the site of Er-Rasm, located ca. 2 km southeast of Tel Ashkelon, revealed evidence of a cemetery of the second to mid-fourth century CE in an area that was built over by a monastic community in the fifth century CE. The finds from the cemetery, a lead coffin decorated with vine scrolls and birds in repeating panels and associated artifacts such as gold threads, are comparable to those unearthed in the same general area in 1926 at Khirbet Khasis, as well as to other lead coffins found in Jerusalem and Ashdod-Yam. In addition, parts of a marble sarcophagus with carved features were discovered at Er-Rasm. These features indicate that the sarcophagus was carved with the scene of the abduction of Persephone, just like the complete example uncovered elsewhere in Ashkelon in 1972.