AL-BAQWAAT (al-). — Modern name given to the necropolis of the city of Hibis ("Ips"), metropolis of the Great Oasis. The first scholars who described it (cf. W. de Bock, Matériaux pour servir à l'archéologie de l'Égypte chrétienne, St. Petersburg 1901; P. Karge, Durch die libysche Wüste zur Grossen Oase, Freiburg 1920, pp. 283-322) considered it entirely Christian; but the American excavations of 1907-1908 and 1926 demonstrated that it is instead largely pagan. It may have been begun around the middle of the 3rd century and later used also by Christians. This is confirmed by papyri from the archive of a local corporation of undertakers and embalmers, dating from the year 247 to 307, all pagan except one (B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt, Greek Papyri, II, Oxford 1897, nos. LXVIII-LXXVIII, pp. 104-25). The pagan mausolea do not differ from the Christian ones either in architectural forms or in construction technique (cf. W. Hauser, The Christian Necropole in Khargeh Oasis, in Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 27 (1932), pp. 38-50), and it is only the recognition of the corpse that can provide precise indications. The pagan tombs so far identified contain mummified bodies enclosed in painted wooden sarcophagi with scenes and symbols from Egyptian mythology: we cannot therefore as yet consider as certainly Christian those tombs which do not reveal themselves as such through their decoration or through painted or graffitied inscriptions on the walls (on the inscriptions of the necropolis see G. Lefebvre, in Annales du Service des Antiquités de l'Égypte, 9 (1908), pp. 179-83; A. Jacoby, Zur der «Annunien» in Inschrift der Grossen Oase in der Libyschen Wüste, in Byzant.-Neugriechische Jahrbücher, 1 (1920), pp. 148-150), pending exhaustive excavations that will enable us to determine exactly the history of the cemetery. This consists of about 250 mausolea arranged in two groups that meet to the north near a large building, which is probably a small three-aisled basilica, surrounded by service rooms and living quarters, perhaps monastic. The mausolea are generally square aediculae, with the door to the south and sometimes a small apse to the east, covered by a dome on pendentives and more rarely by a flat roof; others are circular or octagonal. There are also rectangular mausolea covered with barrel vaults, in some cases interrupted in the middle by a dome. The walls are externally decorated with blind arcades carried by pilasters or engaged half-columns. The perimeter walls rise above the springing of the dome, which generally remains hidden, and are decorated at the top by an openwork frieze of triangles. The building material is sun-dried brick: only the architraves of the doors were of wood or stone. The walls were plastered with silt and whitewashed. On either side of the doors there are triangular niches to hold lamps. Besides the large building mentioned above, three of the Christian mausolea are decorated with important paintings: the one called of biblical scenes, that of allegorical figures, and that with vine decoration.
BAR: ANTIVARI.
BARABBAS (in Aramaic means "son of the father"; spelling uncertain in the Greek text). — A criminal whom the Jews asked Pilate to release, obtaining instead the crucifixion of Jesus (Mt. 27, 15-26; Mk. 15, 6-15; Lk. 23, 13-25; Jn. 18, 39-40). In a few Gospel manuscripts of slight authority, and in the Armenian and Georgian versions, he is called "Jesus Barabbas": according to this variant, already known to Origen, "Barabbas" would be a surname. B. was in prison at the time of Passover and was considered a "notable prisoner" (Mt. 27, 16), and Mk. 15, 7 specifies the reason for his detention: "he had committed murder in an insurrection."
The Jewish custom (Jn. 18, 39) for Passover, alluded to by Pilate, is not known from other sacred or Israelite sources; Lk. 23, 17 seems to allude to a privilege granted by the Romans who, like the Greeks, had similar customs. The fact that Pilate resorted, as a last expedient, to contrasting Jesus with B. in order to obtain the release of the former testifies to the abject nature of the latter. But the Procurator's intention (Acts 3, 14) failed: B. was pardoned, at the request of the people incited by the Sadducees and the elders, perhaps to continue his turbulent life; he entered into a framework of legend, spread by some apocryphal writings.