Tuesday, May 08, 2007, the 200-seat Senate Hall at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem was filled to capacity and they were standing five deep in the doorway - media from Israel and around the world, archaeologists, and students. When Professor Ehud Netzer - veteran scholar of Masada, Hazor, Jericho, and for the past 36 years Herodium where he has sought Herod’s tomb - calls a press conference announcing an “important  find,” it can only be one thing. Prof. Netzer did not disappoint his audience. “This is doubtless the tomb of Herod the Great,” he said.

A Brief History and Current Events

The volcano-shaped mound of Herodium, rising 2,460 feet above sea level southeast of Bethlehem, can still be seen for miles around. Herod the Great, the Herod of the nativity story, built the entire mound, with his palace inside the summit, to mark the site of one of his most important battles. In 43 BC his mother, his sister, his fiancé the famous Mariamne, and other member of his family along with himself were forced to flee Jerusalem when the Parthians besieged the city. On his way to Masada, his mother’s carriage overturned near here and he feared for her life. The Parthians caught up to him, but he overcame them in what became a crucial victory on his way to receiving the crown of Judea from Rome in 37 BCE.

Over the years, Netzer and his team expanded on excavations carried out in the 1960s, and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority (INPA) opened the site to visitors. For Christians, the steep climb to Herod’s palace, where they stand atop its towers for an incomparable 360-degree view of the Judean desert, has special significance when they spy Bethlehem to the west.  It’s easy to imagine Herod pacing these same battlements, brooding over this same view. For Herod, surrounded by enemies, real and imagined, it was a disturbing one (Matt 2:3). Micah the prophet had said of Bethlehem, “From you will come one who will rule Israel for me. He comes from very old times, from days long ago...” (Micah 5:2).

Once In a Generation

The find of Herod’s tomb, which INPA chief archaeologist Dr. Tsvika Tsuk, calls “once in a generation” was a long time coming, considering that the great chronicler of the period, Josephus Flavius places it unambiguously at Herodium and describing the funeral entourage in colorful detail:

“The body was carried upon a golden bier, embroidered with very precious stones of great variety, and it was covered over with purple as well as the body itself; he had a diadem upon his head and above it a crown of gold. He also had a scepter in his right hand. About the bier were his sons and his numerous relations; next to these was the soldiery distinguished according to their several countries and denominations...these were followed by five hundred of his domestics, carrying spices. So they went eight furlongs to Herodium for there by his own command, he was to be buried; (Antiquities of the Jews 17.8.3).

Scholars initially thought Herod’s body might have been interred at the base of the massive western tower. This, Netzer explains, he dismissed from the outset. Herod was Jewish, after all, and Jews, even royal ones with allegiance to Roman culture – did not bury their dead inside of their residences. In the mid-1970s, Netzer turned his attention to the base of the mound, where he brought to light a swimming pool and other elements of what Josephus called the “pleasure grounds” (Wars of the Jews 1, 21, 10). Here Netzer found a monumental building that many began to think must be the long-sought tomb, especially because it was accessed by a road some 1,000 feet long and 90 feet wide that he dubbed the “funerary track.” Until about a year ago, they continued to believe this must be the tomb, although the building yielded no remains of a sarcophagus (stone coffin) that could hint as its use as a royal tomb.