The Lost Key to the Tomb of the Kings in Jerusalem: A Freshly Discovered Stone Relief in Machaerus Identifies its Founder as King Herod the Great

A beautiful, 138 × 52 cm limestone relief from the period of King Herod the Great was unearthed in Machaerus in 2020. The finely carved royal ornamentation is a matching analogy to the same-sized Doric frieze that was cut into the natural rock above the entrance of the Tomb of the Kings in Jerusalem. Both stone reliefs depict a tri-lobate bunch of grapes, the old heraldic symbol of Canaan, together with the royal symbol of the pomegranate wreath. The latest scientific research of Jean-Baptiste Humbert OP of the École Biblique et Archéologique Française de Jérusalem confirmed that the Tomb of the Kings in Jerusalem has a Herodian royal foundation, that predates the burial of Queen Helen of Adiabene, and he suggested that the founder could have been the last Herodian ruler of Judea, King Herod Agrippa I. The present study confirms the Herodian foundation of the monumental Jerusalem royal burial, but in light of the newly discovered Machaerus artifact, and additional contemporary archaeological evidences, identifies the original commissioner of the Tomb of the Kings with the grandfather of King Agrippa I, who was the founder of the royal Herodian dynasty of Jerusalem.