"[6] During the Ottoman period, Wasif Jawhariyyeh mentions the site as the location of communal festivities known as the Yehudia, attended by Jewish, Christian, and Muslims in honour of Shimon the Just.

[9] In earlier times, the Jewish celebration drew the interest of curious local non-Jews and foreigners, as well as Muslim vendors who sold a variety of food and drinks.

It is not graffito, but a large inscription carved in lapidary style in a cartouche with triangular tabs at the ends, engraved on the back wall of the ante-chamber, above the low door, about two metres above the floor of the chamber.

[2] Clermont-Ganneau surmised that she was the wife or daughter of Julius Sabina, first centurion of the Tenth Legion "Fretensis", whose inscription elsewhere showed very similar lettering.

[12] However, because of the absence of the narrow burial shafts called kokhim, they suggest it may have been used to store the bones of people originally buried elsewhere, rather than fresh corpses.