Tomb of Herod
About
King Herod built himself an elaborate three-story mausoleum on the slope of his hilltop fortress south of Jerusalem, its circular tholos ringed with an Ionic colonnade beneath a conical roof. Archaeologist Ehud Netzer identified its remains in 2007, along with fragments of a reddish limestone sarcophagus smashed into pieces. Jewish rebels who despised Herod's memory tore the tomb apart during the revolt of 66-72 CE, decades before this map's 117 CE date. No trace of Herod's actual remains has ever been found.
What happened here
The tomb is built where the traffic is: on the road out of town, facing the carriageway, close enough to read at walking pace. That is the design brief. Inside there may be a single chamber for one family or niches for dozens, with cremation urns or, increasingly, bodies laid out. Outside there is a portrait, an inscription giving the dead their offices and their years, and often a bench, because visitors come back. The family returns on the anniversary and at the February festival of the dead, brings wine and food, and eats a meal at the graveside. Endowments are left to keep it up and lawsuits follow when they are not honoured. A grand tomb is the last public building a family gets to commission.
In ancient writing
- Josephus, Jewish War 1.670–673
The funeral procession from Jericho: the bier of gold, the guard in arms, and eight miles' march to burial at Herodium.
Sources
Nearby
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →