Page 6 - Holyland Magazine - 2010 Edition

Below, part of the gigantic podium
of Herod's tomb emerges from the
mountain. At right, this fresco inside
the tomb shows that even in death,
the tomb's occupants sought
a "window" onto the living world.
architecture were not enough to identify the royal occupant of
the tomb, fragments were found of an elaborately carved, rose-
veined limestone sarcophagus (stone coffin) – more than eight
feet long with a gabled roof – which almost certainly held the
body of Herod himself. Other stone coffins are thought to have
belonged to members of the royal family.
Early in Herod’s reign, he ordered a palace-fortress built atop
and within an artificial mountain, raised to commemorate his
victory in battle here. Earth was piled up, creating the steep
slopes we are climbing. At the top and within the mountain,
the king built his seven-story, 90-foot-high palace. We tour the
palace, standing where Herod once stood, on the ruins of each
of its four towers, taking in part of a 360-degree view, toward
Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron, the Dead Sea and the Mountains
of Moab.
To the west, you’ll see “Lower Herodium,” with the foundations
of the swimming pool, and the porch that once protruded from
the middle. For years, this is the area where Netzer sought the
tomb – at one point believing the discovery was literally around
the corner, after he uncovered a roadway some 100 feet wide
and 1,200 feet long, which he believed the funerary procession
might have taken. But he eventually turned his attention back
to the mountain above, where an irregularity in the surrounding
wall had caught his eye.
On our tour, we entered the tunnels from the colonnaded
courtyard where Herod once had a garden, and where the
Jewish rebels who occupied the site during the Great Revolt
(66-70 CE) had built a ritual bath. The Israel Nature and Parks
Authority, which is in charge of Herodium, has installed electric
lighting in the tunnels, illuminating the amazing workmanship.
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In and around the giant cistern Herod had dug under his
mountain fortress, Jewish rebels against Rome carved this
amazing rabbit-warren of tunnels, from which they could emerge
to raid their Roman nemesis, and disappear again. Jewish
rebels threw off Roman rule twice, once from 66-70 CE, when
the Second Temple was destroyed, and again, 65 years later,
during the three-year Bar Kokhba Revolt. Both times they used
Herodium as a base. Archaeologists tell us that the shattered
sarcophagi did not get that way naturally – they were smashed
to smithereens by the rebels who saw Herod as a traitor to
their faith and freedom.
When we emerge from the tunnels into the sunlight and walk
down the mountain after our tour, the little town of Bethlehem
to the west speaks even more powerfully to us than before. We
can compare the story of Jesus’ birth there in a humble manger
to the description of Herod’s funeral left to us by the historian
Josephus Flavius: “The body was carried on a golden bier,
embroidered with very precious stones…and it was covered with
purpose…he had a diadem upon his head and above it a crown
of gold…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” (Antiquities
of the Jews, 17:196-199).
At the mention of spices, we are reminded of the story of the
“Magi from the East” who came bearing frankincense and myrrh,
and asking: “Where is the one who has been born king of the
Jews?” (Matt. 2:2). We read that when Herod, who held the
power of life and death over his subjects, heard of the Magi’s
visit, he was “very disturbed.” The image we take away with us
of Herod pacing the very battlements above us, looking out at
Bethlehem with Micah’s words ringing in his troubled mind:
“out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel”
(Micah 5:2) – is a powerful one indeed.
Herodium National Park is a 10-minute drive along a new highway from southern
Jerusalem. The Israeli authorities sometimes ask visitors to show passports at
one point along the way.