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DRAWING ADOPTED FROM P.L.-H. VINCENT AND P.M.-A. STEVE, JERUSALEM DE L’ANCIEN TESTAMENT, VOL. 1 (PARIS, 1954), PL. 97

THREE PYRAMIDS may have crowned the terrace above the portico of the Tomb of the Kings, matching Josephus’s description of Queen Helena’s tomb (see isometric reconstruction). Such Egyptian-style features were common in funerary architecture of Hellenistic and Roman Judea. Recent clearing work above the tomb identified several square notches (measuring about 16 by 16 feet) cut into the stone surface, providing possible evidence for the pyramids’ foundations.