Mark 15:47

‘And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses beheld where he was laid.'

The women had not ceased their vigil. When Jesus died they waited still by the cross, and when the two great men of the Sanhedrin arrived with their servants they must have watched, wondering what would now happen. They would not dare to approach them. It was not the kind of thing that respectable women would do, and could have been seen as an affront. And then to their astonishment they saw those two great men arrange for His body to be laid reverently in a nearby tomb, and they watched as the great stone was rolled across, and determined that they would return that His body might be anointed, for they did not know that those great men had already seen to the anointing with great care. How could they have known? And even if they had known they may well have felt that they wanted to make their own loving contribution to the One Whom they had loved so well. Such loyalty has its own logic.

Mark mentions only two who saw because he knew the names of only two. Perhaps he knew that Salome had had to go off to see to Mary the mother of Jesus, who was prostrate (why else was she not there?), and under the care of Salome's son, wanting to release her son in case he could do anything. Luke tells us that at this stage they went back to their lodgings to prepare spices and ointments, and presumably in the light of what happened recognised that they would need more than they had (which suggests they saw it as more than a token anointing).