Image Details

Richard T. Nowitz

A CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY. Crusaders (erroneously) placed this cenotaph draped in velvet on the hill now known as Mt. Zion to mark the traditional tomb of King David. Even the famous Jewish historian Josephus, writing in the first century C.E., thought that David had been buried on the southwestern hill of Jerusalem, which he mistakenly identified as Mt. Zion. Biblical references in the Book of Kings and Book of Nehemiah, however, record the earlier tradition that David and his successors were buried in the City of David on the ridge to the east.