David's Tomb (; ) is a site that, according to an early medieval (9th century) tradition, is associated with the burial of the biblical king David. During the Ottoman and British Mandate periods, Maqam Al-Nabi Daoud served one of Jerusalem prime Islamic shrines. The building is now administered by the Diaspora Yeshiva Jewish seminary group.Murphy-O'Connor, Jerome (2008). pp. 115–118. Historians, archaeologists and Jewish religious authorities do not consider the site to be the actual resting place of King David.
The compound is located on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, near the Christian Abbey of the Dormition. The compound is thought to be situated in what once was a ground floor corner of the Hagia Zion.Pinkerfeld, Jacob. "'David's Tomb': Notes on the History of the Building: Preliminary Report". In Bulletin of the Louis Rabinowitz Fund for the Exploration of Ancient Synagogues 3, ed. Michael Avi-Yonah, Jerusalem: Hebrew University, pp. 41–43. It occupies the ground floor of a former church, whose upper floor holds the Cenacle or "Upper Room" traditionally identified as the place of Jesus' Last Supper and the original meeting place of the early Christian community of Jerusalem.
Due to Israeli Jews being unable to reach holy sites in the Old City of Jerusalem during the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank (1948–1967), the compound including the Medieval cenotaph of David was promoted as a place of worship. The roof above the Cenacle was sought for its views of the Temple Mount and thus became a symbol of prayer and yearning.Jerusalem Divided: The Armistice Regime, 1947–1967, Raphael Israeli, Routledge, 2002, p. 6
The building’s foundation is the remnant of the Church of Zion. The current building was originally built as a church and later repurposed as a mosque, becoming one of the most important Muslim shrines in Jerusalem. It was split into two immediately following the end of the 1948 Palestine war; the ground floor with the cenotaph was converted into a synagogue, and the Muslim cover on the cenotaph was replaced with an Israeli flag and then a parochet. From then onwards, the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs began the process of turning the site into Israel's primary religious site. Jewish prayer was established at the site, and Jewish religious symbols were added. From 1948 until the Six-Day War in 1967 when Israel reclaimed the Western Wall, it was considered the holiest Jewish site in Israel.Doron Bar, "Holocaust Commemoration in Israel During the 1950s: The Holocaust Cellar on Mount Zion," Jewish Social Studies: History, Culture, Society n.s. 12, no. 1 (Fall 2005): 16–38 "The development of Mount Zion and David's Tomb as the holiest site in the State of Israel occurred immediately after the end of the 1948 war, when pilgrims frequented the previously inaccessible tomb... geopolitical change ... followed the Six Day War of 1967. The outcome of the war and the reclamation of the Jewish holy places in the Old City of Jerusalem resulted in the steady decline in the status of David's Tomb and the Holocaust Cellar".
Recent years have seen rising tensions between Jewish activists and Christian worshippers at the site.
History Early history The cenotaph is located in a corner of a room situated on the ground floor remains of the former Hagia Zion, considered as an early church or late era synagogue;Elizabeth McNamer, Bargil Pixner (2008). Jesus and First-Century Christianity in Jerusalem. p. 6 8. "In 1951, archaeologist Joseph [sic] Pinkerfield found on Mount Zion the remains of a synagogue ... Pinkerfield also found pieces of plaster with graffiti scratched on them that came from the synagogue wall. " the upper floor of the same building has traditionally been viewed by Christians as the "Cenacle" or "Upper Room", the site of the Last Supper.
The actual site of David's burial is unknown, though the Hebrew Bible states that David was buried in the City of David.1 Kings 2:10 In the 4th century CE, he and his father Jesse were believed to be buried in Bethlehem. The idea that David was entombed on what was later called Mt Zion dates to the 9th century CE.
Zion, the place conquered by David according to the Books of Samuel, was wrongly ascribed by medieval pilgrims to this site, and from then on David was presumed to be buried there.
Crusader and Franciscan control Writing around 1173, the Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela recounted a colourful story that two Jewish workers employed to dig a tunnel came across David's original splendid palace, replete with gold crown and scepter and decided that the site must be his tomb.
The Gothic cenotaph preserved to this day is the work of the Crusaders.
In 1332 the Franciscans, the officials representatives of the Roman Catholic church in the Holy Places after the final Muslim expulsion of the Crusaders, moved their headquarters to the Cenacle, having acquired it in 1332 from Sultan An-Nasir Muhammad for 30,000 ducats.
Mosque
Lower floor (tomb) According to Dominican pilgrim Felix Fabri,English version, page 303: "The Jews have many times begged the Soldan to give them that place, that they may make an oratory of it, and they beg it of him even to this day : while the Christians have always refused it to them. So at last the Soldan inquired wherefore this place was holy. When he was told that David and the other kings of Jerusalem of his seed were buried there, he said : 'We Saracens also count David holy, even as the Christians and the Jews do, and we believe the Bible as they do. Wherefore neither the Christians nor the Jews shall have that place, but we will take it for ourselves. He thereupon came to Jerusalem and blocked up the door by which one entered that chapel from inside the monastery, desecrated the chapel, turned out Christ's altars, brake the carved images, blotted out the paintings, and fitted it for the worship of the most abominable Mahomet, making a door on the outside by which the Saracens could enter it when they pleased." in 1429 Mamluk Sultan Barsbay took part of the lower floor of the complex away from the Franciscans and converted the tomb chamber into a mosque. Though it was returned a year later, possession alternated back and forth until 1523, during the reign of Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, when Muslim authorities expelled the Franciscans from the entire building.
Upper floor (Cenacle) and Franciscan convent After the 1523 expulsion, the "chapel of the Holy Spirit" (the Cenacle) was transformed into a mosque, as witnessed by a 1524 inscription on its east wall. With the 1536–41 rebuilding of Jerusalem's walls by Suleiman, Mount Zion was again left outside the city.
In 1551 the Franciscans were ejected from the premises of their entire Mount Zion convent, possibly on account of an old 12th-century rumour that Christian workmen had discovered the Tombs of David and Solomon and the other kings of Judah. With time, their properties on Mount Zion were progressively expropriated by the sheikh of the now Muslim shrine of Nabi Da'ud. Sometime between 1600 and 1639 a domed maqam was built over the former "chapel of the Holy Spirit", and only from 1831 onwards were the Franciscans allowed to hold mass there on Maundy Thursday and Pentecost. Muslim control of the site continued until 1948, when Israel placed it under the authority of the Ministry of Religious Affairs.
Status during British Mandate
During the British Mandate period, the site was not subject to the Status Quo of Holy Land sites since it was considered to be "absolutely under the authority of the Moslem Waqf of Nebi Daud, who however arrange to open it to the many that are anxious to visit a site of such sacred traditions".
Israeli control and 1953–54 UN dispute After the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the southern part of Mount Zion upon which the Tomb stands ended up on the Israel side of the Green Line. Between 1948 and 1967, the eastern part of the Old City was occupied by Jordan, which barred entry to Jews even for the purpose of praying at Jewish holy sites. Jewish pilgrims went to David's Tomb and climbed to the rooftop to pray. Since 1949, a blue cloth with basic modernist ornamentation has been placed over the sarcophagus. The images on the cloth include several crown-shaped Torah finials placed over Torah scrolls, and a violin, and the cloth also features several pieces of text written in Hebrew. The building is now part of the Diaspora yeshiva.
Between 1953 and 1954 a dispute arose over the site at the United Nations. In October 1953, Husayn Khalidi, the Jordanian foreign minister and a previous Mayor of Jerusalem wrote to Moshe Sharett via the United Nations about David's Tomb:
He demanded immediate United Nations intervention; Iraq sent a similar message in December. In February 1954, Israel replied:
Recent events In December 2012, unknown persons completely destroyed a large number of 17th-century Islamic tiles in the tomb; the Israel Antiquities Authority has decided not to reconstruct them.
A statue of King David, installed on Mount Zion in 2008 near the compoundThe statue of King David, google.com/maps, 2017. by the Russian Charitable Foundation of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, was dismantled in 2018. The statue had previously been vandalized several times. The installation of the monument in the old section of the city was negatively received by many representatives of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.
Question of authenticity
Earlier traditions The compound is not considered to be the authentic resting place of King David. According to the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament of Christianity), David was actually buried within the City of David together with "his forefathers". This practice repeated itself during the First Temple period – according to the Books of Kings, most of the Judean kings of the House of David were buried "with their fathers" in the City of David. It is also said that Jehoiada the priest was buried among the kings. The Book of Chronicles adds a secondary distinction, stating that some of the kings, such as Ahaziah and Joash were buried in the City of David, but not in the "tombs of the kings".
During the Second Temple period, the tombs of the House of David were still known. They are mentioned in the Book of Nehemiah as a well-known landmark in Jerusalem. The Apostle Peter specifically referred to the location of David's tomb as commonly-known in his sermon on the day of Pentecost. According to the first century Jewish-Roman historian Josephus, Herod the Great tried to loot the Tomb of David, but discovered that someone else had already done so before him. Elsewhere, in Wars of the Jews, Josephus says that John Hyrcanus took three thousand talents from David's tomb in order to defend Jerusalem against Antiochus VII Sidetes.Tosefta, Bava Batra, 1:11 The genuine David's Tomb is unlikely to contain any furnishings of value.
According to the Tosefta, "the graves of the House of David[...] were in Jerusalem and no one had ever touched them."
The 4th-century Pilgrim of Bordeaux reports that he discovered David to be buried in Bethlehem, in a vault that also contained the tombs of Ezekiel, Jesse, Solomon, Job, and Asaph, with those names carved into the tomb walls.Itinerarium Burdigalense 598:4–6
"Zion": three consecutive locations Jebusite fortress According to the Book of Samuel, Mount Zion was the site of the Jebusite fortress called the "stronghold of Zion" that was conquered by King David, becoming his palace and the City of David. It is mentioned in the Book of Isaiah (60:14), the Book of Psalms, and the first book of the Maccabees (c. 2nd century BCE).
Temple Mount