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The royal tombs? Raymond Weill, excavating in the teens and twenties of this century, as well as other scholars, have suggested that two tombs on the western slope of the Kidron Valley are the burial places of Judahite kings. Cut 35 feet into the hillside, the larger tomb contained at its end a rock-cut receptacle into which a sarcophagus could fit.

The Bible frequently remarks that the kings of Judah were buried within the City of David, the earliest Jerusalem; commoners, however, were buried outside the city. Weill noted that these tombs were within the City of David. Author David Ussishkin rejects Weill’s identification, basing his opinion on the poor workmanship inside the tombs.