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.