Exploring the Garden of Uzza 7 the palace tombs (22) or, as Na’aman himself argues on the basis of Ezek 43,7-9, to appease temple priests whose efforts to maintain the purity of the sanctuary were compromised by the adjacent royal graves (23). However, neither of these suggestions is persuasive. It is highly unlikely that Judah’s royal tombs might have become overfull. Archaeological excavations of Iron Age II tombs surrounding Jerusalem suggest that, once a corpse had been laid out inside the tomb on a stone bench for some months, the bones of the deceased would be collected and deposited with those of the ancestors in a corner of the tomb, leaving the bench free for a newly-deceased member of the family (24). Biblical expressions describing the dead as “gathered to the kin” or “gathered to the ancestors” may reflect this particular mortuary practice (25). The appeal to Ezek 43,7-9 as corroborative support for the view that the Garden of Uzza was pressed into service as an alternative royal burial ground is also unpersuasive. Not only does it assume that this difficult biblical text offers a perceptible reference to royal corpses (rather than, for example, offerings to the dead or mortuary memorials)(26), it also accepts uncritically that this information is historically sound. Yet even if this text should record the concerns of Jerusalem priests over the royal graves in the final years of the pre-exilic temple, it would suggest that, despite the assumed burial of later Judahite kings at a new site, the purity of the temple continued to be threatened by the remains of earlier kings who had been buried in the original tombs. Thus the establishment of a new burial (22) E.g., D.J. WISEMAN, 1 and 2 Kings (TOTC; Leicester 1993) 293; M. COGAN – H. TADMOR, II Kings. A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 11; Garden City, NY 1988) 270-271. (23) “Death Formulae”, 251-253; J. GRAY, I & II Kings (OTL; London 21970) 710-711. (24) See further BLOCH-SMITH, Judahite Burial Practices, 41-52. (25) E.g., Gen 25,8; 35,29; Num 20,24; Judg 2,10; Deut 32,50. (26) On the possibility that these verses refer not to royal tombs but to ritual offerings for dead kings, see J.H. EBACH, “PGR = (Toten-)opfer? Ein Vorschlag zum Verständnis von Ez. 43,7.9”, UF 3 (1971) 365-368, and the more recent discussions in M.S. ODELL, “What was the Image of Jealousy in Ezekiel 8?”, The Priests in the Prophets. The Portrayal of Priests, Prophets, and Other Religious Specialists in the Latter Prophets (eds. L.L. GRABBE – A.O. BELLIS) (JSOTSS 408; London – New York 2004) 134-148; H. NIEHR, “The Changed Status of the Dead in Yehud”, Yahwism After the Exile. Perspectives on Israelite Religion in the Persian Era (eds. R. ALBERTZ – B. BECKING) (Assen 2003) 136-155, esp. 138-140, and the literature cited there. For the view that these verses refer to memorial monuments, see D. NEIMAN, “PGR: A Canaanite Cult-Object in the Old Testament”, JBL 67 (1948) 55-60.