David's Tomb (; ) is a site that, according to an early medieval (9th century) tradition, is associated with the burial of the biblical king

David David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Dam ...

. During the Ottoman and British Mandate periods, Maqam Al-Nabi Daoud served one of Jerusalem prime Islamic shrines. The building is now administered by the ''Diaspora Yeshiva'' Jewish

seminary A seminary, school of theology, theological college, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called seminarians) in scripture and theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as cle ...

group. Historians, archaeologists and Jewish religious authorities do not consider the site to be the actual resting place of King David. The compound is located on

Mount Zion Mount Zion (, ''Har Ṣīyyōn''; , ''Jabal Sahyoun'') is a hill in Jerusalem, located just outside the walls of the Old City (Jerusalem), Old City to the south. The term Mount Zion has been used in the Hebrew Bible first for the City of David ( ...

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

, near the Christian Abbey of the Dormition. The compound is thought to be situated in what once was a ground floor corner of the Hagia Zion.Pinkerfeld, Jacob. "'David's Tomb': Notes on the History of the Building: Preliminary Report". In ''Bulletin of the Louis Rabinowitz Fund for the Exploration of Ancient Synagogues'' 3, ed. Michael Avi-Yonah, Jerusalem: Hebrew University, pp. 41–43. It occupies the ground floor of a former church, whose upper floor holds the Cenacle or "Upper Room" traditionally identified as the place of

Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

Last Supper Image:The Last Supper - Leonardo Da Vinci - High Resolution 32x16.jpg, 400px, alt=''The Last Supper'' by Leonardo da Vinci - Clickable Image, ''The Last Supper (Leonardo), The Last Supper'' (1495-1498). Mural, tempera on gesso, pitch and mastic ...

and the original meeting place of the early Christian community of Jerusalem. Due to Israeli Jews being unable to reach holy sites in the

Old City of Jerusalem The Old City of Jerusalem (; ) is a walled area in Jerusalem. In a tradition that may have begun with an 1840s British map of the city, the Old City is divided into four uneven quarters: the Muslim Quarter, the Christian Quarter, the Arm ...

during the

Jordanian annexation of the West Bank The Jordanian administration of the West Bank officially began on 24 April 1950, and ended with the decision to sever ties on 31 July 1988. The period started during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, when Jordan occupied and subsequently annexed the ...

(1948–1967), the compound including the Medieval

cenotaph A cenotaph is an empty grave, tomb or a monument erected in honor of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere or have been lost. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been reinterred elsewhere. Although t ...

of David was promoted as a place of worship. The roof above the Cenacle was sought for its views of the

Temple Mount The Temple Mount (), also known as the Noble Sanctuary (Arabic: الحرم الشريف, 'Haram al-Sharif'), and sometimes as Jerusalem's holy esplanade, is a hill in the Old City of Jerusalem, Old City of Jerusalem that has been venerated as a ...

and thus became a symbol of prayer and yearning.''Jerusalem Divided: The Armistice Regime, 1947–1967'', Raphael Israeli,

Routledge Routledge ( ) is a British multinational corporation, multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, academic journals, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanit ...

, 2002, p. 6 The building’s foundation is the remnant of the Church of Zion. The current building was originally built as a church and later repurposed as a

mosque A mosque ( ), also called a masjid ( ), is a place of worship for Muslims. The term usually refers to a covered building, but can be any place where Salah, Islamic prayers are performed; such as an outdoor courtyard. Originally, mosques were si ...

, becoming one of the most important Muslim shrines in Jerusalem. It was split into two immediately following the end of the

1948 Palestine war The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. During the war, the British withdrew from Palestine, Zionist forces conquered territory and established the Stat ...

; the ground floor with the

was converted into a synagogue, and the Muslim cover on the cenotaph was replaced with an Israeli flag and then a

parochet A ''parochet'' (; ), meaning "curtain" or "screen",Sonne Isaiah (1962) 'Synagogue' in The Interpreter's dictionary of the Bible vol 4, New York: Abingdon Press pp 476-491 is the curtain that covers the Torah ark (''Aron Kodesh'') containing the ...

. From then onwards, the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs began the process of turning the site into Israel's primary religious site. Jewish prayer was established at the site, and Jewish religious symbols were added. From 1948 until the

Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...

in 1967 when Israel reclaimed the

Western Wall The Western Wall (; ; Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: ''HaKosel HaMa'arovi'') is an ancient retaining wall of the built-up hill known to Jews and Christians as the Temple Mount of Jerusalem. Its most famous section, known by the same name ...

, it was considered the holiest Jewish site in Israel. Recent years have seen rising tensions between Jewish activists and Christian worshippers at the site.

History

Early history

The cenotaph is located in a corner of a room situated on the ground floor remains of the former Hagia Zion, considered as an early church or late era synagogue;Elizabeth McNamer, Bargil Pixner (2008). ''Jesus and First-Century Christianity in Jerusalem''. p. 6 8. "In 1951, archaeologist Joseph icPinkerfield found on Mount Zion the remains of a synagogue ... Pinkerfield also found pieces of plaster with graffiti scratched on them that came from the synagogue wall. " the upper floor of the same building has traditionally been viewed by Christians as the " Cenacle" or "Upper Room", the site of the

. The actual site of David's burial is unknown, though the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' City of David. In the 4th century CE, he and his father Jesse were believed to be buried in

Bethlehem Bethlehem is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, located about south of Jerusalem, and the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate. It had a population of people, as of . The city's economy is strongly linked to Tourism in the State of Palesti ...

. The idea that David was entombed on what was later called Mt Zion dates to the 9th century CE. Zion, the place conquered by David according to the

Books of Samuel The Book of Samuel () is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Samuel) in the Old Testament. The book is part of the Deuteronomistic history, a series of books (Book of Joshua, Joshua, Book of Judges, Judges, Samuel, and Books of ...

, was wrongly ascribed by medieval pilgrims to this site, and from then on David was presumed to be buried there.

Crusader and Franciscan control

Writing around 1173, the Jewish traveller

Benjamin of Tudela Benjamin of Tudela (), also known as Benjamin ben Jonah, was a medieval Jewish traveler who visited Europe, Asia, and Africa in the twelfth century. His vivid descriptions of western Asia preceded those of Marco Polo by a hundred years. With his ...

recounted a colourful story that two Jewish workers employed to dig a tunnel came across David's original splendid palace, replete with gold crown and scepter and decided that the site must be his tomb. The Gothic

preserved to this day is the work of the

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...

. In 1332 the

Franciscans The Franciscans are a group of related organizations in the Catholic Church, founded or inspired by the Italian saint Francis of Assisi. They include three independent religious orders for men (the Order of Friars Minor being the largest conte ...

, the officials representatives of the Roman Catholic church in the Holy Places after the final Muslim expulsion of the Crusaders, moved their headquarters to the Cenacle, having acquired it in 1332 from Sultan An-Nasir Muhammad for 30,000 ducats.

Mosque

Lower floor (tomb)

According to Dominican pilgrim Felix Fabri, in 1429 Mamluk Sultan

Barsbay Al-Ashraf Sayf ad-Dīn Barsbāy () was the ninth Burji dynasty, Burji Mamluk sultan of Egypt from AD 1422 to 1438. He was Circassians, Circassian by birth and a former slave of the first Burji Sultan, Barquq. Early career A former slave of the i ...

took part of the lower floor of the complex away from the Franciscans and converted the tomb chamber into a mosque. Though it was returned a year later, possession alternated back and forth until 1523, during the reign of Ottoman Sultan

Suleiman the Magnificent Suleiman I (; , ; 6 November 14946 September 1566), commonly known as Suleiman the Magnificent in the Western world and as Suleiman the Lawgiver () in his own realm, was the List of sultans of the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman sultan between 1520 a ...

, when Muslim authorities expelled the Franciscans from the entire building.

Upper floor (Cenacle) and Franciscan convent

After the 1523 expulsion, the "chapel of the Holy Spirit" (the Cenacle) was transformed into a mosque, as witnessed by a 1524 inscription on its east wall. With the 1536–41 rebuilding of Jerusalem's walls by Suleiman, Mount Zion was again left outside the city. In 1551 the Franciscans were ejected from the premises of their entire Mount Zion convent, possibly on account of an old 12th-century rumour that Christian workmen had discovered the Tombs of David and Solomon and the other kings of Judah. With time, their properties on Mount Zion were progressively expropriated by the sheikh of the now Muslim shrine of Nabi Da'ud. Sometime between 1600 and 1639 a domed

maqam Maqam, makam, maqaam or maqām (plural maqāmāt) may refer to: Musical structures * Arabic maqam, melodic modes in traditional Arabic music ** Iraqi maqam, a genre of Arabic maqam music found in Iraq * Persian maqam, a notion in Persian clas ...

was built over the former "chapel of the Holy Spirit", and only from 1831 onwards were the Franciscans allowed to hold mass there on

Maundy Thursday Maundy Thursday, also referred to as Holy Thursday, or Thursday of the Lord's Supper, among other names,The day is also known as Great and Holy Thursday, Holy and Great Thursday, Covenant Thursday, Sheer Thursday, and Thursday of Mysteries. is ...

and

Pentecost Pentecost (also called Whit Sunday, Whitsunday or Whitsun) is a Christianity, Christian holiday which takes place on the 49th day (50th day when inclusive counting is used) after Easter Day, Easter. It commemorates the descent of the Holy Spiri ...

. Muslim control of the site continued until 1948, when Israel placed it under the authority of the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

Status during British Mandate

During the British Mandate period, the site was not subject to the

Status Quo is a Latin phrase meaning the existing state of affairs, particularly with regard to social, economic, legal, environmental, political, religious, scientific or military issues. In the sociological sense, the ''status quo'' refers to the curren ...

of Holy Land sites since it was considered to be "absolutely under the authority of the Moslem

Waqf A (; , plural ), also called a (, plural or ), or ''mortmain'' property, is an Alienation (property law), inalienable charitable financial endowment, endowment under Sharia, Islamic law. It typically involves donating a building, plot ...

of Nebi Daud, who however arrange to open it to the many that are anxious to visit a site of such sacred traditions".

Israeli control and 1953–54 UN dispute

After the

1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war becam ...

, the southern part of Mount Zion upon which the Tomb stands ended up on the

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

side of the Green Line. Between 1948 and 1967, the eastern part of the Old City was occupied by

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

, which barred entry to Jews even for the purpose of praying at Jewish holy sites. Jewish pilgrims went to David's Tomb and climbed to the rooftop to pray. Since 1949, a blue cloth with basic modernist ornamentation has been placed over the sarcophagus. The images on the cloth include several crown-shaped Torah finials placed over

Torah scroll A Sephardic Torah scroll rolled to the first paragraph of the Shema An Ashkenazi Torah scroll rolled to the Decalogue file:Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue, Interior, Tora Cases.jpg">Torah cases at Knesset Eliyahoo Synagogue, Mumbai, India ...

s, and a

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

, and the cloth also features several pieces of text written in Hebrew. The building is now part of the Diaspora ''

yeshiva A yeshiva (; ; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are studied in parallel. The stu ...

''. Between 1953 and 1954 a dispute arose over the site at the United Nations. In October 1953, Husayn Khalidi, the Jordanian foreign minister and a previous

Mayor of Jerusalem The Mayor of the City of Jerusalem is head of the executive branch of the political system in Jerusalem. The mayor's office administers all city services, public property, most public agencies, and enforces all city and state laws within Jerusal ...

wrote to

Moshe Sharett Moshe Sharett (; born Moshe Chertok (); 15 October 1894 – 7 July 1965) was the second prime minister of Israel and the country’s first foreign minister. He signed the Israeli Declaration of Independence and was a principal negotiator in th ...

via the United Nations about David's Tomb: He demanded immediate United Nations intervention; Iraq sent a similar message in December. In February 1954, Israel replied:

Recent events

In December 2012, unknown persons completely destroyed a large number of 17th-century Islamic tiles in the tomb; the Israel Antiquities Authority has decided not to reconstruct them. A statue of King David, installed on Mount Zion in 2008 near the compound by the Russian Charitable Foundation of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, was dismantled in 2018. The statue had previously been vandalized several times. The installation of the monument in the old section of the city was negatively received by many representatives of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.

Question of authenticity

Earlier traditions

The compound is not considered to be the authentic resting place of King David. According to the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

), David was actually buried within the City of David together with "his forefathers". This practice repeated itself during the First Temple period – according to the

Books of Kings The Book of Kings (, ''Sefer (Hebrew), Sēfer Malik, Məlāḵīm'') is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Kings) in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. It concludes the Deuteronomistic history, a history of ancient Is ...

, most of the Judean kings of the House of David were buried "with their fathers" in the City of David. It is also said that

Jehoiada Jehoiada ( ''Yəhōyāḏā‘'', "Yahweh knows") in the Hebrew Bible, was a prominent priest in the kingdom of Judah during the reigns of Ahaziah (reigned c. 842 - 841 BCE), Athaliah (reigned c. 841–835 BCE), and Joash (reigned c. 836–79 ...

the priest was buried among the kings. The

Book of Chronicles The Book of Chronicles ( , "words of the days") is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Chronicles) in the Christian Old Testament. Chronicles is the final book of the Hebrew Bible, concluding the third section of the Jewish Heb ...

adds a secondary distinction, stating that some of the kings, such as Ahaziah and Joash were buried in the City of David, but not in the "tombs of the kings". During the

Second Temple period The Second Temple period or post-exilic period in Jewish history denotes the approximately 600 years (516 BCE – 70 CE) during which the Second Temple stood in the city of Jerusalem. It began with the return to Zion and subsequent reconstructio ...

, the tombs of the House of David were still known. They are mentioned in the

Book of Nehemiah The Book of Nehemiah in the Hebrew Bible largely takes the form of a first-person memoir by Nehemiah, a Hebrew prophet and high official at the Persian court, concerning the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile and the ...

as a well-known landmark in Jerusalem. The Apostle Peter specifically referred to the location of David's tomb as commonly-known in his sermon on the day of Pentecost. According to the first century Jewish-Roman historian

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

Herod the Great Herod I or Herod the Great () was a History of the Jews in the Roman Empire, Roman Jewish client king of the Herodian kingdom of Judea. He is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea. Among these works are the rebuilding of the ...

tried to loot the Tomb of David, but discovered that someone else had already done so before him. Elsewhere, in ''Wars of the Jews'', Josephus says that

John Hyrcanus John Hyrcanus (; ; ) was a Hasmonean (Maccabee, Maccabean) leader and Jewish High Priest of Israel of the 2nd century BCE (born 164 BCE, reigned from 134 BCE until he died in 104 BCE). In rabbinic literature he is often referred to as ''Yoḥana ...

took three thousand talents from David's tomb in order to defend Jerusalem against Antiochus VII Sidetes.Tosefta, Bava Batra, 1:11 The genuine David's Tomb is unlikely to contain any furnishings of value. According to the

Tosefta The Tosefta ( "supplement, addition") is a compilation of Jewish Oral Law from the late second century, the period of the Mishnah and the Jewish sages known as the '' Tannaim''. Background Jewish teachings of the Tannaitic period were cha ...

, "the graves of the House of David ..were in Jerusalem and no one had ever touched them." The 4th-century Pilgrim of Bordeaux reports that he discovered David to be buried in

, in a vault that also contained the tombs of

Ezekiel Ezekiel, also spelled Ezechiel (; ; ), was an Israelite priest. The Book of Ezekiel, relating his visions and acts, is named after him. The Abrahamic religions acknowledge Ezekiel as a prophet. According to the narrative, Ezekiel prophesied ...

, Jesse,

Solomon Solomon (), also called Jedidiah, was the fourth monarch of the Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy), Kingdom of Israel and Judah, according to the Hebrew Bible. The successor of his father David, he is described as having been the penultimate ...

Job Work, labor (labour in Commonwealth English), occupation or job is the intentional activity people perform to support the needs and desires of themselves, other people, or organizations. In the context of economics, work can be seen as the huma ...

, and Asaph, with those names carved into the tomb walls.

"Zion": three consecutive locations

Jebusite fortress

According to the Book of Samuel, Mount Zion was the site of the Jebusite fortress called the "stronghold of Zion" that was conquered by

King David David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Damas ...

, becoming his

palace A palace is a large residence, often serving as a royal residence or the home for a head of state or another high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome whi ...

and the City of David. It is mentioned in the

Book of Isaiah The Book of Isaiah ( ) is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Major Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. It is identified by a superscription as the words of the 8th-century BC prophet Isaiah ben Amo ...

(60:14), the

Book of Psalms The Book of Psalms ( , ; ; ; ; , in Islam also called Zabur, ), also known as the Psalter, is the first book of the third section of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) called ('Writings'), and a book of the Old Testament. The book is an anthology of ...

, and the first book of the

Maccabees The Maccabees (), also spelled Machabees (, or , ; or ; , ), were a group of Jews, Jewish rebel warriors who took control of Judea, which at the time was part of the Seleucid Empire. Its leaders, the Hasmoneans, founded the Hasmonean dynasty ...

(c. 2nd century BCE).

Temple Mount

After the conquest of the Jebusite city, located on the ridge west of the Kidron Valley, the ridge's highest part, in the north, became the site of Solomon's Temple. Based on archaeological excavations revealing sections of the First Temple city wall, this is believed to have received the name Mount Zion.

Western hill

Towards the end of the First Temple period, the city expanded westward. Just before the Roman conquest of Jerusalem and the destruction of the

Second Temple The Second Temple () was the Temple in Jerusalem that replaced Solomon's Temple, which was destroyed during the Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC), Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. It was constructed around 516 BCE and later enhanced by Herod ...

described Mount Zion as a hill across the city's central valley to the west. This indicates that the western hill by then had come to be known as Mount Zion, and this has been the case ever since. It must however be said that Josephus never used the name "Mount Zion" in any of his writings, but described the "Citadel" of king David as being situated on the higher and longer hill, thus pointing at the Western Hill as what the Bible calls Mount Zion.

Early synagogue: pro and con

The 4th-century accounts of the Bordeaux Pilgrim, Optatus of Milevus, and Epiphanius of Salamis all record that seven synagogues had once stood on Mount Zion. By 333 CE (a date defined by some as the end of the Roman period and beginning of the Byzantine period), only one of them remained, but no association with David's tomb is mentioned. One fringe theory claims that at the end of the Roman period, a synagogue called Hagiya Zion was built at the entrance of the structure known as David's Tomb, probably based on the belief that David brought the

Ark of the Covenant The Ark of the Covenant, also known as the Ark of the Testimony or the Ark of God, was a religious storage chest and relic held to be the most sacred object by the Israelites. Religious tradition describes it as a wooden storage chest decorat ...

here from

Beit Shemesh Beit Shemesh () is a city council (Israel), city located approximately west of Jerusalem in Israel's Jerusalem District. A center of Haredi Judaism and Modern Orthodoxy, Beit Shemesh has a population of 170,683 as of 2024. The city is named afte ...

and Kiryat Ye'arim before the construction of the Temple. Jacob Pinkerfeld, the archaeologist who has worked on part of the site, has also suggested that "David's Tomb" was actually a 2nd-century, late-Roman synagogue. The identification of David's Tomb as a synagogue has been thoroughly challenged due to the absence of typical synagogal architectural characteristics including (original) columns, benches, or similar accoutrements. The presence of a niche in the original foundation walls, thought by a few to be evidence of a Torah niche, has been refuted by many scholars as being too large and too high (8' x 8') to have served this purpose.

Source of the tradition

David's Tomb

According to Professor Doron Bar,

Although the sources for the tradition of David's Tomb on Mount Zion are not clear, it appears that it only began to take root during the subsequent, early Muslim period. Apparently, the Christians inherited this belief from the Muslims, and only at a relatively late juncture in the city's history were the Jews finally convinced as well.

Others disagree. The facility was under the control of Greek Christians at this time. It was, indeed, shortly before the Crusades at the earliest that the location of David's Tomb can be traced to Mount Zion. But the first literary reference to the tomb being on Mount Zion can be found in the tenth-century ''Vita Constantini'' (Life of Constantine). Ora Limor attributes the localizing of the tomb on Mount Zion to the tenth-century transition from the liturgical celebration of the "founding fathers" of Jerusalem, King David, the founder of the dynasty and capital city, and

James, brother of Jesus James the Just, or a variation of James, brother of the Lord ( from , and , , can also be Anglicized as "Jacob"), was, according to the New Testament, a brother of Jesus. He was the first Jewish bishop of Jerusalem. Traditionally, it is bel ...

, the founder of the "mother of all churches" on Mount Sion, to the belief that their tombs were actually located at the site where the liturgy was held–a case of "consolidation", from "abstract foundation myth... into the physical tradition of the tomb." Limor quotes Muslim traveller Mas'udi, who in 943 wrote about Muslim traditions that placed the tomb of David in the

Aleppo Aleppo is a city in Syria, which serves as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Governorates of Syria, governorate of Syria. With an estimated population of 2,098,000 residents it is Syria's largest city by urban area, and ...

region of

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

and in eastern

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

. Having initially revered David's tomb in Bethlehem, Muslims began to venerate it on Mount Zion instead but no earlier than the 10th century following the Christian (and possibly Jewish) lead. In the twelfth century, Jewish pilgrim

recounted a somewhat fanciful tale of workmen accidentally discovering the tomb of David on Mount Zion, in which he used details from

Josephus Flavius Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

's narrative about the attempt by

to rob the tomb.

Upper Room and first church

Epiphanius' 4th-century account in his ''Weights and Measures'' is one of the first to associate the location with the original meeting place of the Christian faith, writing that there stood "the church of God, which was small, where the disciples, when they had returned after the Savior had ascended from the Mount of Olives, went to the upper room".

Exploration

In the mid-nineteenth century, engineer and amateur archaeologist Ermete Pierotti reported discovering a cavern beneath the grounds of the Byzantine and Crusader churches on Mount Zion which he suspected extended to beneath the Tomb of David. A limited exploration revealed human remains within a huge vault supported by piers. The cavern has yet to be confirmed or scientifically excavated. In 1951, archaeologist Jacob Pinkerfeld worked in the lower parts of the structure and interpreted them as being the remains of a synagogue which, in his opinion, had later been used as a church by Judeo-Christians.

Alternative burial sites

Archaeologists, doubting the Mount Zion location and favouring the biblical account, have since the early 20th century sought the actual tomb in the City of David area. In 1913, Raymond Weill found eight elaborate tombs at the south of the City of David,Kathleen Kenyon, ''Archaeology in the Holy Land'' (1985), p. 333. which archaeologists have subsequently interpreted as strong candidates for the burial locations of the former kings of the city; Hershel Shanks, for example, argues that the most ornate of these (officially labelled ''T1'') is precisely where one would expect to find the burial site mentioned in the Bible.Hershel Shanks, ''Biblical Archaeology Review'', January/February 1995, p. 64.

Notes

References

;Bibliography * * * * * * * * * * * * {{Coord, 31, 46, 17.9, N, 35, 13, 44.45, E, display=title Buildings and structures completed in the 12th century Gothic architecture in Israel Cenotaphs in Israel Torah places Shrines in Jerusalem David Mount Zion Tombs of biblical people Jewish pilgrimage sites Religious buildings and structures converted into mosques Tombs in Israel