King David’s Tomb–A Closer Look
The Hebrew Bible makes it clear that King David and his successors were buried somewhere on the narrow ridge of the City of David near the Gihon Spring where the earliest city of Jerusalem was located. But where exactly? In an early-20th-century excavation, Raymond Weill believed he had discovered the royal necropolis, but many have challenged the identification. Was Weill right?
For further reading on King David’s tomb, click here.
Click the images below to zoom in for a closer look at Weill’s drawings:
These drawings are published in The City of David: Revisiting Early Excavations by Raymond Weill and L.-H. Vincent.
This article was first published in Bible History Daily on October 9, 2012.
Become a BAS All-Access Member Now!
Read Biblical Archaeology Review online, explore 50 years of BAR, watch videos, attend talks, and more
Related reading in Bible History Daily
The Tel Dan Inscription: The First Historical Evidence of King David from the Bible
All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library
Not a BAS Library or All-Access Member yet? Join today.
Related Posts
Must-Read Free eBooks
Unlock Unlimited Access to the Bible's Past
Unlock Unlimited Access to the Bible's Past
Become an All-Access Member to explore the Bible's rich history. Get Biblical Archaeology Review in print, full online access, and FREE online talks. Plus, enjoy special Travel/Study discounts. Don't miss out—begin your journey today!
They are looking in the wrong place. According to the book of Ezra modern Jerusalem was not the site of the ‘first temple’. Ezra laid the foundation for the temple in modern Jerusalem. Until then modern Jerusalem was an abandoned ancient city with broken down walls. (Nehemiah 2)
Ezra 3:6
From the first day of the seventh month began they to offer burnt offerings unto the LORD. But the foundation of the temple of the LORD was not yet laid.
Ezra then says the building stopped all throughout the reign of Cyrus and wasn’t completed until the 6th year of Darius. According to Nehemiah 2:1-3 the Temple was still not completed by the 20th year of Artaxerxes. This means the second Temple wasn’t completed until the 6th year of Darius II or about 418 BCE.
All the stories about Solomon in the book of Kings, (i.e. cedars from Lebanon, 666 talents of gold, pharaoh’s daughter etc.), all happened at the temple in the unexcavated buried city at the Google Earth coordinates below. They have already excavated the Kings Sepulchres to the North.
30°58′14.57″N 031°53′10.18″E
Believe it or not, the evidence from archeology, the Old Testament and Herodotus all point here, nothing points to modern Jerusalem (other than the name) until after Cyrus the Great.
Why look for David in modern Jerusalem?
Shalom,
Rose
Are you nuts?
Sorry Rose I should have said, to place David’s tomb in Egypt is a complete misunderstanding of the Bible, history and archaeological evidence.
30°58′14.57″N 031°53′10.18″E
These coordinates are for Tanis, capital of Egypt, about 800 BC.
A.S.K. org. believes David’s tomb was on the southern wall of the temple which was on the city of David (David Sieloff & all), I agree. His palace is in Givati, & his tent was next to it.
It became consecrated ground, Solomon built the temple on top. The podium on Pilgrim’s Road may have had a statue commemorating David & his tomb’s entrance, since
torn down by the Romans. In Jesus, C.C. – June 8, 2020.
In Ephraim, Gilead, of two caves , to where he laid his two sons, as they had wished their bones, like his mother and only sister, to be layed next to each other, he also wanted to laid with them. His body was promised to not decay by Thy Most High.
If I read R. Weill correctly, he found Maccabean walls in the vicinity of the Royal Necropolis. The line of these walls required evacuation of the Tombs, lest human remains be under the walls, in contrast to Torah. On a Sunday afternoon in Oct. 1982, I met a young American archaeologist who showed me his site, below the western City Walls, being cleaned up for the National Park. He was excavating an Iron Age tomb of Isaiah’s time; he had concluded that it was evacuated prior to the building of these walls, upon which the Turks followed the same line. So DAVID’s Bones (& perhaps those of the other kings as well) were MOVED from their ‘City of David’ site. JOSEPHUS knew they’d been moved to the SW Hill. I suspect the Maccabees “moved the Name” & henceforth called it Har Zion, in honor of King David, especially as the Samaritans were calling Gerazim “Mt Moriah”! The Exiles had begun calling the Temple site “Mt Moriah” already, but this wanted “re-enforcement” in Maccabean days.
We can see that a huge crowd had come -immediately upon conclusion of the Temple rites of Shavu’ot, -before “9 o’clock in the morning’- May 24, 33AD, to visit & honor David’s Tomb, on “David’s Day” – The Day of Pentecost, his Birth & death day. Peter had a GOD-SUMMONED Crowd to hear his Sermon … and David’s Tomb was RIGHT THERE at hand! They’d come just to leave a pebble there in his honor!
Dr David Goodblatt, my Professor at UCSD, was dumb-struck when I pointed out to him that Josephus knew that hill as “ZION” — & by no other name — in the First Century of our Era. [Wars. V.4.1] He’d always assumed, like so many, that it was a “medieval” notion. But the House with the Upper Room was known in Antiquity as “Holy Zion, Mother of Churches” — for a reason.