From a book of essays in memory of the late Sargent Major Amnon Benyaminovich – a geographer of Israel who fell during the Yom Kippur War.

Of all the magnificent buildings of Jerusalem in the days of the First Temple, only the Temple and the Palace of the Kings are described in the Bible in detail. Another magnificent royal site, mentioned several times, but without details about its location, and without an architectural description, is the burial place of the kings. The Temple, the Palace, and the Tombs of the Kings have excited the imagination of Jerusalem researchers since the beginning of modern research. In our search for information about the Temple and the Palace of the Kings, we have to be content with what is told in the Bible and architectural influences with the remains of similar buildings in neighboring countries and other sites of the same period; Their location on the Temple Mount and its slopes did not leave extensive possibilities for modern archaeology. Several researchers in the 19th and 20th centuries set themselves the discovery of the Tombs of the Kings as the goal of their excavations: De Sousy (1863), Guetta (1881), Bliss and Dickey (following Clermont-Gano, 1894-1897) Weill (1913-1914) ). The detailed studies on the location of the Tombs of the Kings of Judah (by Vincent, Simmons, Yayvin, and others) were based mainly on the written sources. Now, in light of the intensive research in Jerusalem, especially since the Six Day War, and after a hundred years of archaeological research in the city, it seems that information from the excavations can also be used for a renewed study of the subject.