![Sacred geography, and antiquities (1872) (14769639754)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Sacred_geography%2C_and_antiquities_%281872%29_%2814769639754%29.jpg)
The Tombs of the Kings ( ''Keveri HaMlakhim''; ; ) are a
rock-cut funerary complex in
East Jerusalem
East Jerusalem (, ; , ) is the sector of Jerusalem that was held by Jordan during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, as opposed to the western sector of the city, West Jerusalem, which was held by Israel.
Jerusalem was envisaged as a separat ...
believed to be the burial site of
Queen Helene of Adiabene (died c. AD 50–56), hence: Helena's Monuments. The tombs are located 820 meters (half a mile) north of Jerusalem's
Old City walls in the
Sheikh Jarrah
Sheikh Jarrah ( ar, الشيخ جراح, he, שייח' ג'ראח) is a predominantly Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem, north of the Old City, on the road to Mount Scopus. It received its name from the 13th-century tomb of Sheikh Ja ...
neighborhood (Hebrew: ; Arabic: )
The grandeur of the site led to the belief that the tombs had once been the burial place of the kings of Judah, hence the name Tombs of the Kings; but the tombs are now associated with Queen Helena of
Adiabene
Adiabene was an ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia, corresponding to the northwestern part of ancient Assyria. The size of the kingdom varied over time; initially encompassing an area between the Zab Rivers, it eventually gained control of Ni ...
.
["Ancient Jerusalem's Funerary Customs and Tombs: Part Three, L. Y. Rahmani, The Biblical Archaeologist, Vol. 45, No. 1 (Winter, 1982), pp. 43-53] According to this theory, Queen Helena chose the site to bury her son Isates and others of her dynasty. More recent research by noted French scholar and Dominican monk Jean-Baptiste Humbert has concluded that the tomb was likely designed for Herod Agrippa I, the grandson of Herod the Great.
The site is located east of the intersection of
Nablus Road Nablus Road (, ''Derekh Shekhem'', "Shechem Road") is one of the traditional routes radiating from Jerusalem's walled city. Starting at the Damascus Gate, it is the ancient road north.
Places of interest
* American Colony Hotel
* Armenian Ceramic ...
and Saladin Street. The gate of the property is marked "Tombeau des Rois", French for "Tomb of the Kings."
Public access
![Jérusalem Tombeau des Rois décembre 2019](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/J%C3%A9rusalem_Tombeau_des_Rois_d%C3%A9cembre_2019.jpg)
On May 15, 2019, Hekdesh, a Jewish organisation (''Association Hekdesh du Tombeau des rois''), hired
Gilles-William Goldnadel
Gilles-William Goldnadel (born 1954) is a French and Israeli lawyer, author and columnist.
Early life
Gilles-William Goldnadel was born on 12 January 1954 in Rouen, in northern France.Catherine CorollerPassion Sion ''Libération'', March 2, 2010 H ...
, a French lawyer, and took the French government to court. Goldnadel tried to prove that the site, after being purchased in 1878 by a French-Jewish woman, Berthe Amélie Bertrand, or by the brothers Péreire, French-Jewish bankers, was left to the French state on condition that the Jews would preserve the right to visit the site (see below at
History
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
).
[French consulate opens disputed Second Temple site in East Jerusalem]
Nir Hasson for Haaretz
''Haaretz'' ( , originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , ) is an Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel, and is now published in both Hebrew and English in the Berliner f ...
, 28 June 2019[À Jérusalem, les juifs ultra-orthodoxes réclament l'accès au Tombeau des rois]
Le Figaro and Agence France Presse, 27 January 2019, accessed 15 May 2020 Goldnadel also hopes to reclaim the sarcophagus of queen Helena of Adiabene, presently housed at the
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
.
[Des rabbins israéliens veulent chasser la France du Tombeau des rois]
Thierry Oberlé for Le Figaro, 16 May 2019
On June 27, 2019, the French consulate in Jerusalem reopened the site to visitors purchasing tickets in advance.
[
]
General layout
From street level a hewn staircase, measuring in width and having a length of , descends into a carved courtyard. Alongside the staircase there is built a drainage system and cisterns. The main courtyard sinks down to a depth of within the bedrock and has a total measurement of approximately x . The portal is on its western façade and is ascended by a flight of three steps. In front of the burial cave formerly stood two pillars and two pilasters
In classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wall ...
carved in the rock face and which are now scarcely visible. Above the portal is a Doric Doric may refer to:
* Doric, of or relating to the Dorians of ancient Greece
** Doric Greek, the dialects of the Dorians
* Doric order, a style of ancient Greek architecture
* Doric mode, a synonym of Dorian mode
* Doric dialect (Scotland)
* Doric ...
frieze
In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...
, made of metope
In classical architecture, a metope (μετόπη) is a rectangular architectural element that fills the space between two triglyphs in a Doric frieze, which is a decorative band of alternating triglyphs and metopes above the architrave of a bu ...
s and triglyphs
Triglyph is an architectural term for the vertically channeled tablets of the Doric frieze in classical architecture, so called because of the angular channels in them. The rectangular recessed spaces between the triglyphs on a Doric frieze are ...
, with a cluster of grapes in the center and wreaths of acanthus leaves next to it. A leaf plexus
In neuroanatomy, a plexus (from the Latin term for "braid") is a branching network of vessels or nerves. The vessels may be blood vessels (veins, capillaries) or lymphatic vessels. The nerves are typically axons outside the central nervous syste ...
extends along the architrave
In classical architecture, an architrave (; from it, architrave "chief beam", also called an epistyle; from Greek ἐπίστυλον ''epistylon'' "door frame") is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of columns.
The term can ...
.
The inner tomb is made-up of a complex labyrinth consisting of eight chambers, with a total of 48 burial niches, some of which formerly contained decorated sarcophagi
A sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a box-like funeral receptacle for a cadaver, corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from ...
. The chambers of the royal tomb are made with both ''kokhim
A rock-cut tomb is a burial chamber that is cut into an existing, naturally occurring rock formation, so a type of rock-cut architecture. They are usually cut into a cliff or sloping rock face, but may go downward in fairly flat ground. It was a ...
'' (burial niches) in the old Jewish style, and ''arcosolia
An arcosolium, plural arcosolia, is an arched recess used as a place of entombment. The word is from Latin , "arch", and , "throne" (literally "place of state") or post-classical " sarcophagus".
Early arcosolia were carved out of the living rock ...
'' in the Roman fashion.
History
![Detail from A Plan of Jerusalem and the Adjacent Country - Pococke Richard - 1745 (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Detail_from_A_Plan_of_Jerusalem_and_the_Adjacent_Country_-_Pococke_Richard_-_1745_%28cropped%29.jpg)
Queen Helena of Adiabene
The tomb is mentioned by the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus
Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for ''The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly d ...
in the first century C.E. He writes about Helena, queen of Adiabene, a small kingdom from Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
(today part of Kurdistan, northern Iraq) who came to Jerusalem at the end of the Second Temple Period
The Second Temple period in Jewish history lasted approximately 600 years (516 BCE - 70 CE), during which the Second Temple existed. It started with the return to Zion and the construction of the Second Temple, while it ended with the First Jewis ...
. Her family converted to Judaism and built a palace in the area today known as the City of David "City of David" is a biblical and religious epithet for the ancient city of Jerusalem.
It may also refer to:
* City of David (archaeological site) - an archaeological excavation associated with ancient Jerusalem
* Jerusalem Walls National Park
...
. Helena's son Monobaz II
Monobazus II was the son of Queen Helena of Adiabene and King Monobazus I. He is known as Monobaz in the Babylonian Talmud.
Like his younger brother Izates bar Monobazus and his mother, Monobazus became a convert to Judaism. He ruled as king of A ...
had her remains and those of his brother buried "three stadia from Jerusalem." Medieval Europeans mistakenly identified the tomb as belonging to the kings of Judah.[In Memoriam: The Tomb of the Kings]
Ron Peled for Ynetnews, 8 June 2006
Discovery and exploration
In 1847, the Turkish governor ordered a search for treasures in the tomb but none were found.
In 1863, the French archaeologist Félicien de Saulcy was given permission to excavate the tomb.
The German architect Conrad Schick
Conrad Schick (1822–1901) was a German architect, archaeologist and Protestant missionary who settled in Jerusalem in the mid-nineteenth century.Perry & Yodim (2004) For many decades he was head of the "House of Industry" at the Christ Church, ...
drew up a map of the site. De Saulcy found sarcophagi, one of which was bearing the Hebrew inscription "Queen Tzaddah". He believed this was the sarcophagus of the wife of Zedekiah
Zedekiah (), was the 20th and last king of Judah before the destruction of the kingdom by King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. His birth name was Mattaniah/Mattanyahu ( he, מַתַּנְיָהוּ, ''Mattanyāhū'', "Gift of God"; el, Μαθθ ...
, the last king of Judah.[
After human bones were found, the Jewish community appealed to Sir ]Moses Montefiore
Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, 1st Baronet, (24 October 1784 – 28 July 1885) was a British financier and banker, activist, philanthropist and Sheriff of London. Born to an Italian Sephardic Jewish family based in London, afte ...
to persuade the Ottomans to halt the excavations. De Saulcy smuggled out some of his findings, which are now at the Louvre in Paris.[
]
Purchase and property
In 1864, the French-Jewish banker Isaac Péreire attempted to purchase the site but without success. In the 1870s, a French-Jewish woman, Amalya Bertrand, paid 30,000 francs for it. It was registered as French property under the trusteeship of the French consul. Bertrand declared: "I am of the firm opinion that this property, the field and the burial cave of the kings, will become the land in perpetuity of the Jewish community, to be preserved from desecration and abomination, and will never again be damaged by foreigners.[ She had a wall and guard post built around the site. In 1886, Bertrand's heirs donated it to the French government][ "to preserve it for science and the worship of the faithful ]children of Israel
The Israelites (; , , ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan.
The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele o ...
".
Traditions
The Tomb of the Kings was described by the Greek geographer Pausanias Pausanias ( el, Παυσανίας) may refer to:
*Pausanias of Athens, lover of the poet Agathon and a character in Plato's ''Symposium''
*Pausanias the Regent, Spartan general and regent of the 5th century BC
*Pausanias of Sicily, physician of th ...
as the second most beautiful tomb in the world (after the tomb
A tomb ( grc-gre, τύμβος ''tumbos'') is a :wikt:repository, repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be ...
of Mausolus
Mausolus ( grc, Μαύσωλος or , xcr, 𐊠𐊸𐊫𐊦 ''Mauśoλ'') was a ruler of Caria (377–353 BCE) and a satrap of the Achaemenid Empire. He enjoyed the status of king or dynast by virtue of the powerful position created by h ...
, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, also known as the Seven Wonders of the World or simply the Seven Wonders, is a list of seven notable structures present during classical antiquity. The first known list of seven wonders dates back to the 2 ...
) who visited in Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
. He declares that he "knows many wonderful tombs" and mentions two of them, one of which is in Halicarnassus
Halicarnassus (; grc, Ἁλικαρνᾱσσός ''Halikarnāssós'' or ''Alikarnāssós''; tr, Halikarnas; Carian: 𐊠𐊣𐊫𐊰 𐊴𐊠𐊥𐊵𐊫𐊰 ''alos k̂arnos'') was an ancient Greek city in Caria, in Anatolia. It was located i ...
and the other "in he Land of
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
the Hebrews" (Greek: ἐν τῇ Ἑβραίων) and has a sophisticated opening mechanism aimed at a certain day of the year and for a certain time: "The Hebrews have a tomb, that of Helena, a local woman, in the city of Jerusalem (Greek:πόλει Σολύμοις), which the Roman emperor razed to the ground. There is a contrivance in the tomb whereby the door, which like the entire tomb is made of stone, does not open until the year brings back the same day and the same hour. Then the mechanism, unaided, opens the door, which, after a short interval, closes itself again. It happens at the same time, but if you try at any other time to open the door, you will not be able to do so; Power will not open it, but will only break it."
A small stone house was built on top of the tomb by Irhimeh clan (), a Jerusalemite family.
Archaeological findings
From the house there is a 9 meter wide staircase (23 steps) that was originally paved and leads to a forecourt. The rain water is collected in baths, which are carved in the steps, and carried via a channel system to the water wells. At the bottom of the stairs there are ancient ritual baths (mikva’ot) as well as a stone wall to the left with a gate. This gate leads to a courtyard that was cut from the rock at the same date. The dimensions of this courtyard are roughly 27 meters long from north to south and 25 meters wide from west to east.
The entrance to the tombs is via this courtyard. The tombs are entered via a rock-cut arch (facade) in the western side. The 28-meter facade was originally crowned with three pyramids, which no longer exist, and decorated with reliefs of grapes, plexus leaves, acorns and fruit, reflecting the Greek architectural style. The architrave was originally supported by two pillars, fragments of which were found in the excavations.
The tombs are arranged on two levels around a central chamber, with four rooms upstairs and three rooms downstairs. The central chamber itself is entered from the courtyard via an antechamber that goes down into a dimly lit maze of chambers. The access from the antechamber to the exterior courtyard could be sealed closed by rolling a round stone across it, and the stone still remains ''in-situ''. In the first century C.E., a "secret mechanism" operated by water pressure moved the stone. Probably a small amount of water pressure activated a system of weights to open the tomb. Two of the eight burial chambers have arcosolia
An arcosolium, plural arcosolia, is an arched recess used as a place of entombment. The word is from Latin , "arch", and , "throne" (literally "place of state") or post-classical " sarcophagus".
Early arcosolia were carved out of the living rock ...
, resting places made of a bench with an arch over it. Some of the arcosolia have triangular niches where oil lamps were placed to give light during the burial process.
The two most common types of tombs in the first century CE are found in this tomb complex. Shaft tomb
A shaft tomb or shaft grave is a type of deep rectangular burial structure, similar in shape to the much shallower cist grave, containing a floor of pebbles, walls of rubble masonry, and a roof constructed of wooden planks.
Practice
The practi ...
s were long narrow shafts in which the deceased were placed and closed with a stone slab which probably had the name of the occupant inscribed on it. Channels in the center of the shafts were probably carved to drain the water that seeped through the rock.
The tombs are now empty, but previously housed a number of sarcophagi
A sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a box-like funeral receptacle for a cadaver, corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from ...
; they were excavated by a French archaeological mission headed by Louis Felicien de Saulcy, who took them back to France. They are exhibited at the Louvre.
Although no kings are known to have been buried here, one of the sarcophagi
A sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a box-like funeral receptacle for a cadaver, corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from ...
bears two Aramaic
The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...
inscriptions and is thought to be that of ''Queen Helena of Adiabene
Adiabene was an ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia, corresponding to the northwestern part of ancient Assyria. The size of the kingdom varied over time; initially encompassing an area between the Zab Rivers, it eventually gained control of Ni ...
''; the one inscription which reads, ''Ṣaddan Malkata'' ( Palmyrene: צדן מלכתא), and the other, ''Ṣaddah Malkatah'' (Aramaic
The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...
: צדה מלכתה), interpreted by scholars to mean: "Our mistress, the Queen."['']Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum
The ("Corpus of Semitic Inscriptions", abbreviated CIS) is a collection of ancient inscriptions in Semitic languages produced since the end of 2nd millennium BC until the rise of Islam. It was published in Latin. In a note recovered after his de ...
'', Volume 2, plate 156, p
179
cf. ''Ecclesiastical History
__NOTOC__
Church history or ecclesiastical history as an academic discipline studies the history of Christianity and the way the Christian Church has developed since its inception.
Henry Melvill Gwatkin defined church history as "the spiritual ...
'' 2:12 The sarcophagus is now at the Louvre Museum
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
in Paris. The decorative architecture of the tomb complex is Seleucid
The Seleucid Empire (; grc, Βασιλεία τῶν Σελευκιδῶν, ''Basileía tōn Seleukidōn'') was a Greek state in West Asia that existed during the Hellenistic period from 312 BC to 63 BC. The Seleucid Empire was founded by the ...
, which would fit with this identification.
File:A. Salzmann - Fragments d'un sarcophage, Tombeau du Rois de Juda - Jerusalem.jpg, Sarcophagus of Helena of Adiabene
Helena of Adiabene ( he, ''Hellēnī''; d. ca. 50–56 CE) was a queen mother of the Parthian vassal state of Adiabene (modern-day Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan). With her husband and brother Monobaz I, she was the mother of Izates II and Monobaz II. H ...
File:A. Salzmann - Fragments d'un sarcophage, Tombeau du Rois de Juda 2 - Jerusalem.jpg, Sarcophagus from the Tombs of the Kings
File:Sarcophagus Louvre AO5029 n01.jpg, The Sarcophagus in the Louvre
See also
*Rock-cut tombs in ancient Israel
Rock-cut tombs were a form of burial and interment chamber used in ancient Israel. Cut into the landscapes surrounding ancient Judean cities, their design ranges from single chambered, with simple square or rectangular layouts, to multi-chambere ...
External links
Tomb of the Kings Battle Brews Between French and ultra-Orthodox Over Jerusalem Archaeology Site
Nir Hasson for Haaretz, 21 December 2018
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tombs Of The Kings (Jerusalem)
Archaeological sites in Jerusalem
Buildings and structures in Jerusalem
Buildings and structures in the West Bank
Rock-cut tombs
Tourist attractions in Jerusalem
Historic sites in Jerusalem
Jewish catacombs
Overseas France
Sheikh Jarrah
Tombs in Israel