All the gospels mention the holy women who were the first to discover the empty tomb after Christ's Resurrection, but there is little agreement as to who they were. Of the companions of the Virgin Mary who were present at the crucifixion and who accompanied the body to the tomb, some five or six are named but in the present theme it is customary to depict three only, known as the Three Maries, or myrrhophores, bearers of myrrh. It is told that they came to the tomb early in the morning bringing spices and aromatic oils to anoint the body, but discovered that the stone sealing the entrance had been rolled away, and the body gone. An angel (or two, the accounts vary) in dazzling white robes announced to them that Christ had risen and that they were to tell the disciples. The tomb may take the form described in the gospels, a cavity hewn out of the rock, but is more usually a conventional stone sarcophagus from which the lid has been removed. It stands in an open space and in the distance can be seen the city of Jerusalem. The figure sitting on the tomb (there are occasionally two) is dressed in white and may be depicted with wings like an angel (Matt.), or simply as a young man (Mark). A wand or scepter tipped with a fleur-de-lys identifies the angel as Gabriel. The women stand in awe before him, one perhaps kneeling. Mary Magdalene can usually be recognized by her long hair and sometimes by her jar of ointment; but more often all three carry jars of myrrh. The soldiers, set to watch by Pilate, are round the tomb usually asleep, or apparently so, for, according to Matthew, at the sight of the angel they 'shook with fear and lay like the dead.' Until the 13th cent. the theme was represented in place of the Resurrection which was rarely depicted before then. Thereafter the angel and the Three Maries are sometimes transferred to pictures of the Resurrection.