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Netzer, considered a world expert on Herodian architecture, began his search for Herod's tomb more than three decades ago. After digging in various spots on Mount Herodium, Netzer said the team knew it was close to the tomb when they found the first pieces of a "monumental" sarcophagus made of hard limestone during excavations on the northeastern slope.
"There is only one or two of its kind found so far" in the country, Netzer said. "It's not that every rich Jew or citizen of this time could afford it. It's really a royal one."
Netzer's team of archeologists Ya'akov Kalman, Roi Porath and local Bedouins also unearthed part of a platform of dressed limestone – about 30-by-30 feet – that belonged to the mausoleum. Other "high-quality" artifacts found at the site included decorated urns similar to those found on burial monuments of the Nabatean culture.
No inscriptions have been found, but the team says circumstantial evidence – an account of Herod's funeral at the site by the historian Josephus Flavius, the lucrative artifacts and remnants found, and historical records indicating Herod's decision to be buried there – points to this being the king's burial site.
According to the archeologists, Herodium included a prefabricated "tomb estate" for the king with a mikvah for ritual purification of the corpse. There also was a "monumental" flight of stairs – 20 feet wide – up which the bier was carried.
Josephus' book "The Jewish Wars" describes the funeral at Herodium in detail. Herod's son Archelaus, Josephus wrote, "brought forth all the royal ornaments to accompany the procession in honor of the deceased. The bier was of solid gold, studded with precious stones, and had a covering of purple, embroidered with various colors; on this lay the body enveloped in purple robe, a diadem encircling the head and surmounted by a crown of gold, the scepter beside his right hand."
The find is one of the most important discoveries from the Second Temple period, said Oren Gutfeld, professor of classical archeology at the Hebrew University Institute of Archeology.
"Someone so famous, like Herod the Great, Herod the Builder, a dominant person in the history of Israel and who we know about so much from literary sources – from Josephus Flavius – and archaeological finds all over Israel and outside, it's a diamond in the crown," said Gutfeld, who had worked with Netzer at Herodium for three years and has seen the tomb remnants.
Stephen Pfann, president of the University of the Holy Land and a specialist in inscription studies and Second Temple historiography, said Netzer should be congratulated for finding sarcophagus fragments, which indicates "a tomb of someone on the ground who was very rich, affluent, perhaps of great honor."
But he said more work remains to be done.
"We don't know whether Archelaus or one of the other sons was buried there with him," Pfann said. "We don't know whether the fragments of the sarcophagus might be of someone else. All we know from history is that he is the only one mentioned as being buried there."
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