Someone who touches a tightly sealed barrel full of tahor liquid that was made into a cover for a grave becomes tamei for seven [days]. [However,] the barrel and the liquid remain tahor. Someone who touches an animal used as a cover for a grave becomes tamei for seven days. R’ Meir says: A living being does not transmit tumah as a cover.

[If] someone touches a corpse and utensils or forms a roof over a corpse and touches utensils, [the utensils] become tamei. [If] he forms a roof over a corpse and over utensils, or he touches a corpse and forms a roof over utensils, [the utensils] remain tahor. If his hand is a handbreadth square, the utensils are tamei. There are two houses, each of which contains [a piece of corpse flesh] half the size of an olive, and a person stretches his hands into the houses. If his hands are as big as a square handbreadth, tumah spreads. If not, tumah does not spread.

All movable items convey tumah when they are as thick as a goad. R’ Tarfon said: ‘‘May I bury my children if this is not a mistaken ruling, which a listener heard and misunderstood. A farmer was once walking with his goad on his shoulder, when one end formed an ohel over a grave. [The Sages] declared him tamei because the uten-sils sheltered a corpse.’’ R’ Akiva said: ‘‘I will emend [the ruling] so that the words of the Sages remain valid. All movable objects convey tumah upon the person who carries them when they are as thick as a goad; upon themselves even if they are very thin; and upon an-other person or other utensils when they are a handbreadth wide.’’

How so? [If] a spindle was embedded in a wall and there is [a piece of corpse] half the size of an olive beneath it, and another piece half the size of an olive above it — even though they are not one above the other — [the spindle] is tamei. Thus, it spreads tumah onto itself no matter what size it is. [If] a person who sells [earthenware] pots was passing [by a grave] with a car-rying pole on his shoulder, one end of which forms a roof over a grave, the utensils on the other end [of the pole] remain tahor. [However,] if the carrying-pole is a handbreadth wide, [the utensils] become tamei. Mounds that are near either a town or a road are tamei, whether they are new or old. [However, concerning] the distant ones: Those that are new are tahor, whereas the old ones are tamei. What is meant by near? [Within] fifty cubits. And [what is considered] old? [Any that are] sixty years old, these are the words of R’ Meir. R’ Yehudah says, ‘‘near’’ means that no other is closer, and ‘‘old’’ means that no one remembers it.

Someone who finds a corpse lying in its usual manner for the first time may remove it along with its surrounding earth. Someone who finds two [corpses] may remove them along with their sur-rounding earth. Someone who finds three [corpses] that are between four and eight cubits apart has located a district of graves. [Once it has been determined to be a district of graves,] he must search an ad-ditional area of twenty cubits. [If] he finds [even] one [grave] within twenty cubits, he must search from it an additional twenty cubits, for there is basis for concern, for if he had found [only] this [grave] initially, he would [be required to] take it along with its surrounding earth.

The one who searches, searches a cubit square and [then] leaves a cubit until he reaches bedrock or virgin soil. The person who removes the earth from the place of tumah may eat his terumah. Someone who clears away a pile may not eat his terumah.

Someone who was searching and reached a river, an irrigation canal, or a public highway, stops [his search]. In a field in which people were killed, [if] all the bones are collected the field is then considered tahor. [If] someone is removing a grave from his field, he gathers up every bone and the whole [field] is considered tahor. [Regarding] a pit into which stillborn fetuses or slain people were thrown, the bones are gathered, and the whole [pit] is considered tahor. R’ Shimon says: If [the pit] was initially intended to be a grave, the surrounding earth must be removed.

One who plows a grave thereby creates a beis hapras. How far does [his plowing] make [a beis hapras]? A furrow’s length, which is one hundred cubits, an area of four se’ah. R’ Yose says: An area of five [se’ah]. [This applies] to a downward slope, but on an upward slope [the following procedure determines the size of a beis hapras]: A quarter [kav] of vetch seeds are placed on the knee-shaped part of the plow. Up to the place where three vetches will sprout alongside one another is deemed a beis hapras. R’ Yose says: [The law of beis hapras applies only] to a downward slope, not to an upward slope.

[If a person] was plowing and he struck a rock or a fence, or he shook out the plow, until that point is the beis hapras. R’ Eliezer says: One beis hapras can make another beis hapras. R’ Yehoshua says: Sometimes it does, and sometimes it does not. How so? [If] one plows half a furrow, and then plows the other half or to the sides, this makes another beis hapras. [However, if] he plows a furrow’s length, and then plows from that point on, [the beis hapras] does not make another beis hapras.

[If] a person plows over a pit containing corpses, through a pile of bones, through a field in which a grave was lost, through a [field] in which a grave was [subsequently] found, [or] through [a field] that is not his property, or a gentile plows, it does not make a beis hapras — because [the ruling of] beis hapras does not apply to Cutheans.

[If] a beis hapras field is above a tahor field [and] rain washed down [soil] from the beis hapras to the tahor [field], even [if the field was] red and now it turned white, or white and now it turned red, [the beis hapras soil] does not make [the tahor field] in-to a beis hapras.

[With regard to] a field in which a grave was lost, and a house with an upper story was built on it: if the doorway of the upper story was directly above the doorway of the house, the upper story remains tahor. But if not, the upper story becomes tamei. Soil of a beis hapras and soil from outside the Land of Israel that arrive in veg-etables combine when there is as much as the seal of packing sacks, these are the words of R’ Eliezer. The Sages say: Only when the amount equal to the seal of packing sacks is in one place. R’ Yehudah says: It used to happen that letters came from overseas to the sons of Kohanim Gedolim and they had on them the equivalent of a se’ah or two of seals — yet the Sages were not concerned that they might be tamei.