Book excerpt: The series of tomb paintings of Marisa, barely 60 kilometres southwest of Jerusalem, represents one of the first major discoveries of paintings dating from the Hellenistic period proper. They produced much excitement among art scholars and antiquarians at the time of their discovery, almost exactly a century ago. John Peters and Hermann Thiersch rendered a considerable service to later generations by having these paintings photographed almost immediately, because they very rapidly deteriorated and within a few years virtually disappeared.