Ḥorvat Qasra and the Chapel of Holy Salome: Features, Identity and Archaeological Context

Ḥorvat Qasra is located on a hilltop in the southern Judaean Foothills near the ancient road connecting the plains and foothills with Hebron. The site consists of a central building, with a tower and rooms built around an inner courtyard, and a hiding complex cut into the rock below. Additional cavities were carved into the soft chalk of the slopes: underground quarries, two cross-shaped columbaria installations and some cisterns. In the southern part of the site, a Jewish rock-cut burial complex from the 1st–2nd centuries CE was excavated. This had a monumental entrance, with a roofed vestibule and cliff walls faced with ashlars. In front was a large courtyard. During the Byzantine period (5th c. CE), the burial complex was transformed into a Christian chapel, dedicated to Holy Salome.
Numerous inscriptions and graffiti incised on its walls, in Greek, Christian Palestinian Aramaic and Arabic, attest that Holy Salome was venerated here until the Abbasid period (8–9th centuries CE). A Christian structure was erected outside the chapel, in the former courtyard of the tomb, and probably functioned as a monastic compound. Given the long veneration of Salome in this cave, there is a question about her identity. It has been assumed that she was the ‘doubting midwife’ of an apocryphal story. We suggest instead that another Salome was remembered as being buried here — Salome the disciple and Myrrhophore.