Pilgrims and Prestige - The BAS Library

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The monumental tombs dotting Jerusalem’s Kidron Valley have been associated traditionally with towering figures from the He-brew Bible. In reality, these funerary monuments mostly date from the late Second Temple period. Their location along the main ceremonial route into the city conveyed the status and prestige of Jerusalem’s wealthiest families while also evoking the spiritual significance of Temple pilgrimage.

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Footnotes

1. Hershel Shanks, “The Siloam Pool: Where Jesus Cured the Blind Man,” BAR, September/October 2005.

2. Uzi Leibner and Orit Peleg-Barkat, “At the Temple Gates: The Archaeology of Jerusalem Pilgrimage,” BAR, Fall 2025.

3. Hershel Shanks, “The Tombs of Silwan,” BAR, May/June 1994; Gabriel Barkay, “Who Was Buried in the Tomb of Pharaoh’s Daughter?” BAR, January/February 2013.

4. See Orit Peleg-Barkat, “Reimagining Herod’s Royal Portico,” BAR, July/August/September/October 2019.

Endnotes

1. For fuller discussion, see our article “Pilgrimage Pathways: Burial Monuments and Road Networks in Early Roman Jerusalem,” Cercetări Arheologice 31.2 (2024), pp. 347–378.

2. Gabriel Barkay, “Yad Avshalom—Tomb of Agrippa I, King of Judah,” in Eyal Meiron, ed., Studies on the City of David and Ancient Jerusalem (Jerusalem: Megalim Institute, 2013), pp. 79–100 (Hebrew).