Tomb of Nahum

History: Tomb of Nahum

The prophet Nahum is known from a short biblical book foretelling the fall of Nineveh, the Assyrian capital. The book calls him "Nahum the Elkoshite" (Nahum 1:1), and tradition places his tomb inside the old synagogue at Alqosh, a Christian town in the Nineveh Plains, although other places, in Galilee among them, have also claimed to be his Elkosh.

The tomb was repaired in 1796 and damaged in 1832 during an attack on Alqosh. When the town's Jewish community left in 1948, the keys were entrusted to an Assyrian Christian neighbour, Sami Jajouhana, who kept watch over the building. By 2017 the structure was close to collapse. The Alliance for the Restoration of Cultural Heritage raised funds to stabilise it, work finished in January 2018, and in 2019 the United States government pledged $500,000 towards its restoration. Nahum is venerated as a saint in Eastern Christianity.

An interesting detail

The Eastern Orthodox Church keeps Nahum's feast on 1 December, and the Armenian Apostolic Church remembers him with the other minor prophets on 31 July.