Ben C Smith

On XTalk, Jim West has made mention of a news story announcing the discovery of the tomb of Herod the great.

So all you skeptics who have doubted the existence of Herod the great can just suck eggs. Same eggs you sucked when it was discovered that Pilate existed. And the Hittites.

Ben.

[Tongue firmly in cheek, for those who may have somehow missed the subtlety of the winking smilie.]

Toto

Herod was buried . . . in Herodium! Great detective work!

Riverwind

Awesome! I visited Herodium last year, a site few foreigners visit these days due to the fact that it is in Palestinian controlled land, and the scholar we toured with told us that they believed they were close to discovering Herod's Tomb. This is fantastic! I can't wait for more detailed information. I'd love to be able to place the location of the Tomb on the "map" of Herodium in my memory. So far, however, the article doesn't give a real good description...

What does "between the two palaces" mean??? I assume they are talking about the "palace" at the top and the palace at the bottom, but does "between" mean on the side of the hill? Does it mean inside the hill and underneath the now-open palace area on top (one can descend by ancient stairs into a cistern and other areas directly below the palace at the top of the hill).

Can't wait for more info! Exciting!

Vorkosigan

Damn! There goes the paper I was writing proving that Herodium never existed and Josephus was actually an exiled Aztec.

Great news, Ben.

Riverwind

Aztec??? Can you prove that he wasn't Inca??

Larsguy47

YIPPIE! This is great Ben C. THANKS!!!

I didn't see any "details" though about the tomb. I wonder if they will find evidence of how long his reign was. It it attributes "37 years" then the historians are in big trouble! That's because that would likely be a reference to his PRIMARY reign when it actually began in 37 CE. Not likely he'd include those others years when he was appointed "king of the Jews" by the Senate in 40 CE.

The article also dates his death in 4 BCE which is not per Josephus. Even though Josephus does give you both reigns for Herod, 37 years from 40 and 34 years from 37, if Herod dies on Shebat 2 then he would have died on Shebat 2, 3 BCE not Shebat 2, 4 BC.

The 4 BC date is branded in the minds of historians because of that eclipse Herod mentions. But this is great EVIDENCE that the eclipse doesn't work, since after Herod's death and a 7-day mourning period, it took 25 days to walk Herod's body from Jerusalem to Herodium. So you are already talking about at least a month past Herod's death before Passover starts to approach. The eclipse happens on March 13/14 in 4 BC, and so Passover is just 30 days later on April 13/14. So there's not enough time for Archaelus to return, a revolt take place, etc. as passover season approaches. It doesn't work.

Now it works from Shebat 2, which is like February 2, where you have enough time. But the March 13/14 eclipse just doesn't work. Furthermore, the eclipse is supposed to happen before Herod dies. March 13/14 is 6 weeks after his death on February 2 (Shebat 2).

So I'm curious, now that they've found the tomb itself, if something will actually give away the fact that Herod died on Shebat 2, 1 AD.

Thanks for this reference. Definitely worth following! Seems there should have been an inscription on the tomb, right? I wonder if that has been published?

Great news!

LG47

yummyfur

Josephus doesn't say it took 25 days, and it's fairly clear the 7 day period of mourning includes his burial, it seems people want to take the 8 stadia a day rate for the funeral procession seriously, as if the text of Josephus is inerrant or something. I mean i can slowly crawl on my hands and knees farther the 8 stadia( somewhat less than a mile) in a six hour period, so the rate is unbelievably slow and clearly a scribal error. I would say that the rate was 28 or 38 stadia a day( a very believable rate), 28 would be roughly 7 days for the 200 stadia route, and 38 would be roughly 6 days. Making it fit nicely with the seven day mourning period. It would also seem strange for Archelaus to be charged with not doing enough for Herod's funeral by his enemies, after have a 25 day funeral procession.

spin

"Inca"? I believe that was a scribal error (perhaps poor dictation) and should have been "Stinca", a dialectal variation on "Stinker", which was a term of contempt used by the Jews to refer to Josephus. Hmmm, quite a Chinese whisper: Stinker -> Stinca -> Inca -> Aztec. That was notty, Vork.

Besides, isn't Herodium some sort of drug... for incontinence or something similar?


pisn

Sauron

You have star charts to prove that, right Vork?
And a book that shows a homosexual love affair between Herod and Josephus?
What about some photographs of cloud formations that spell out "HEROD WAS HERE" or something like that?

Because as you know, modern archaeology is a demanding discipline.

Riverwind

A few views of the Herodium from my trip:









The following two images are taken descending into the cistern, the bowels of the Herodium.