All movable objects spread impurity when they are as thick as an ox goad. Rabbi Tarfon says, May I strike my children if this is [not] a stricken law which the listener heard but erred, when a farmer passed with an ox goad on his shoulder and one side of his overshadowed a grave and they declared him impure because of vessels which overshadow a dead body. Rabbi Akiva says, I will fix it so the words of the Sages will endure: Any movable object spreads impurity to a person carrying them if it is as thick as an ox goad, and on themselves if it is any thickness and on other people and vessels if it is a handbreadth's space.

How so? If a spindle was stuck into a wall and [a piece of dead body the size of] half an olive was below it and half an olive above it, even if they are not aligned, it is impure. We see that it spreads impurity to itself in any amount. If a potter was passing with a basket on his shoulder and one side of his overshadowed a grave, vessels on the other side are pure. If there is in the basket a handbreadth's space, they are impure. Mounds of dirt which are close to a city or a road whether new or old are impure, those far, the new are pure and the old are impure. What is considered close? Fifty cubits. What is considered old? Sixty years, says Rabbi Meir. Rabbi Yehuda says close means there are none closer than it and old means that no one remembers [when] it [was created].

One who found a corpse buried normally in the beginning, he may take it along with the surrounding dirt [to be reburied elsewhere]. If he found two [corpses], he may take them along with the surrounding dirt. [If] he found three, if there is between each of them from four to eight cubits, as much as a bier and its gravediggers, this is [considered] a graveyard [and cannot be desecrated]. [Therefore, he must] check from it and all around [for a distance of] twenty cubits. [If] he found one [corpse] a full twenty cubits away, [he must continue] to check from it and all around twenty cubits, because there is an established likelihood, for if in the beginning he found this [same corpse] he would have been able to take it along with the surrounding dirt.

One who checks must check a cubit by a cubit and then may leave a cubit until he reaches a rock or virgin soil. One who removes soil from an impure place can eat from his Terumah [A portion of a crop given to a Kohen which becomes holy upon separation, and can only be consumed by Kohanim or their household] but one who clears away a mound cannot eat from his Terumah.

If he was checking and he reached a brook or a channel or a public road, he may stop. A field in which slain people were slain, he may gather bone by bone and everything is pure. One who removes a grave from his field, he may gather bone by bone and everything is pure. A pit into which miscarried fetuses or slain people were thrown, he may gather bone by bone and everything is pure. Rabbi Shimon says, if it was designated as a grave from the beginning, it has surrounding soil [that is considered impure and must also be collected].