Tombs of the Kings
About
Queen Helena of Adiabene, a convert to Judaism who moved her royal household to Jerusalem, was buried in this rock-cut funerary complex after her death around 50-56 CE. A monumental staircase and courtyard lead to a 28-meter facade that the historian Josephus said was once crowned by three pyramids. Underground chambers and passages inside could hold up to fifty burials, cut for her family from Assyria's Adiabene kingdom. A massive rolling stone still seals part of the original entrance.
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 Antiquities 20.95
Queen Helena of Adiabene is buried in the three pyramids she had built three stades outside Jerusalem.
Sources
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 →