Herod’s Tomb Uncovered

Excavations began at Herodian in the 1970s when they unearthed a magnificent fortress that Herod had built into an artificial hill, as well as a lavish palace complex below the hill. However, one mystery remained: where was the tomb of Herod? The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus records that Herod was buried at Herodian, but in 30 years of digging, archaeologists could not find it.

The location of the burial place on the northeast side of the Herodian Many scholars believed that Herod’s tomb was somewhere within the fortress itself; however, Netzer felt that this didn’t conform to Jewish practices of the time and continued to look elsewhere. In the palace area below the hill, Netzer and his team discovered the remains of a great monumental building. In front of it was a 100 feet (30 meters) wide by 1,150 feet (350 meters) long pathway, which they interpreted correctly to be a funerary course.The archaeologists followed the funerary course to where it ended, turned to the hill above them, where they noticed something about halfway up the hill. Just barely visible was a few stones of a wall, which they uncovered further and found to be part of the retaining walls used to build the artificial hill.

They continued to dig in the northeastern area of the hill and found hundreds of pieces of a sarcophagus as well as elaborate ornamentation, which they believe came from the building that the sarcophagus was in. Both the sarcophagus and the building appear to have been intentionally smashed to pieces, probably sometime during the First Jewish Revolt (AD 67–73) against the Romans, according to Netzer.

Once all the area was cleared, the archaeologists discovered the remains of a platform, approximately 33 feet (10 meters) square, built to support the burial chamber. Netzer and his team found no inscription or body that could conclusively prove that this was Herod’s tomb, but believe that future excavations may reveal more.

—By Will King, Israel Mosaic Radio Correspondent