Another View: The Disappearance of Two Royal Burials

Home > Magazines > BAR > November/December 2007

In the July/August issue of BAR, Norma Franklin describes in detail how she managed to identify two royal Israelite tombs cut into the rock beneath the monumental palace built by King Omri in Samaria in the ninth century B.C.E.a The palace and the alleged tombs were excavated nearly a hundred years ago by the famous Harvard archaeologist George A. Reisner, who was ably aided by the highly regarded excavation architect Clarence S. Fisher. The two alleged royal tombs are identical in shape, size and orientation. Franklin labels the first one Tomb A; she assigns this to King Omri himself. […]

Please join the BAS Library or become an All Access member of BAS to gain full access to this article and so much more.

Join the BAS Library!

Already a library member? Log in here.

Institution user? Log in with your IP address or Username

Footnotes

Norma Franklin, “Lost Tombs of the Israelite Kings,” BAR 33:04.

Endnotes

G.A. Reisner, C.S. Fisher and D.G. Lyon, Harvard Excavations at Samaria 1908–1910 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1924).

G.E. Wright, “Archaeological Method in Palestine—An American Interpretation,” Eretz-Israel 9 (Albright Volume) (1969), p. 121.

Reisner, Fisher and Lyon, Harvard Excavations at Samaria 1908–1910, pp. 39 (and Fig. 7), 61–62, 94–95, 101; Plans 2, 4–5.

Reisner, Fisher and Lyon, Harvard Excavations at Samaria 1908–1910, pp. 62, 396.