King Herod the Great
The Legacies of Herod the Great
Barbara Burrell, PhD
Gives an overview of the questions and problems that still confront archaeologists exploring the time of Herod and its aftermath. As you will read, Herod introduced new trends in almost every sphere that archaeology can document. Sometimes, and in some places, those trends were followed, but sometimes they were ignored or refused; it is as important to track one as the other, and to try and understand why Herod was such a force to be imitated or resisted.
Near Eastern Archaeology, 77(2).
Building Power
Kenneth G. Holim, PhD
In AD 44, Agrippa, king of Judea, stood in the theater of Caesarea, clothed in a garment woven of silver threads that glittered in the first rays of sunlight. To those who looked upon him, he seemed awesome and terrible. The spectators were the leading men of the kingdom. Everyone in positions of authority had gathered in Caesarea to celebrate athletic contests founded by Agrippa’s grandfather, Herod the Great.
Herod's Roman Temple
David Jacobson, PhD
For King Solomon’s Temple, the Phoenician king, Hiram of Tyre, supplied not only construction materials and masons but apparently the architectural plan as well. The structure, as it is described in the Bible, is clearly a Syro-Phoenician building, for which archaeology has found several parallels in that cultural sphere. Solomon made use of the best skills and building techniques that he could obtain from Phoenicia, because they were not available locally. A millennium later, Herod the Great followed his example, seeking state-of-the-art expertise and design for his rebuilding of the Second Temple. Only this time, it was not the Syro-Phoenician world but the Greek and Roman cultural sphere that was preeminent and that Herod adopted.
Wooden Beams from Herod’s Temple Mount: Do They Still Exist?
Peretz Reuven
The Romans destroyed Herod’s Temple in AD 70. Is it possible that some of the wooden beams from his Temple Mount have survived—and may be identified? Some of the beams may even be from the Temple. Wooden beams of this quality were extremely valuable and would have been reused.
Reimagining Herod’s Royal Portico
Orit Peleg-Barkat, PhD
“It is deserving of mention more than any other under the sun.” (Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities).
Searching for Portraits of King Herod
Ralf Krumeich & Achim Lichtenberger
What did King Herod look like?
When the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome was consecrated on August 5, 434, splendid mosaics with scenes from the Old and New Testaments decorated its nave and triumphal arch. In two scenes on the triumphal arch, King Herod of Judea appears. We see him enthroned in the scene receiving the three magi (Matthew 2:1-8), and in a
parallel mosaic, he gives the order for the massacre of the innocents (Matthew 2:16). Herod is bearded and wears a military costume with a blue cloak and a white diadem
around his head, framed by a nimbus (a circle of light around his head).
Herod’s Horrid Death
Nikos Kokkinos
Physicians have long debated what caused King Herod’s death, but there is no doubt (or disagreement) that his demise was a horrid one. We know the king’s symptoms in some detail from the first-century Jewish historian Josephus. Josephus actually wrote two accounts, the first in his Jewish War—a narrative of the First Jewish Revolt against Rome, AD 66–70, written in the late 70s—and the second in his Jewish Antiquities—a much longer history of the Jewish people, written in the 90s.
Was Herod’s Tomb Really Found?
There was never any question as to where Herod was buried. The first-century Jewish historian Josephus tells us: at Herodium. The bier was carried nearly 20 miles from Jericho, where Herod died, to Herodium. Josephus describes the procession: Herod was borne upon a golden bier studded with precious stones of various kinds and with a cover of purple over it. The dead man too was wrapped in purple robes and wore a diadem on which a gold crown had been placed, and beside his right hand lay his scepter. [Thousands must have been in the procession, including] the whole army as if marching to war … followed by 500 servants carrying spices. And they went eight stades [or 200 furlongs] toward Herodium, for it was there that the burial took place by
his own order. But where at Herodium?
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