Silwan necropolis

The Silwan necropolis is the most important ancient cemetery in Israel, and is assumed to have been used by the highest-ranking officials residing in Jerusalem. Its tombs were cut between the 9th and 7th centuries BCE. It is situated on the rocky eastern slope of the Kidron Valley, facing the oldest part of Jerusalem. The Arab village of Silwan was later built atop the necropolis.

Although the existence of ancient tombs in the village of Silwan had been known since the 19th century, the first careful survey was not performed until 1968. Charles Warren, who was thwarted in his efforts to carry out a full survey of the tombs, in some of which villagers were living, attributed this to "the hostile nature of the villagers" whom he described as "a lawless set." All of the tombs were long since emptied and their contents removed.

A great deal of destruction was done to the tombs over the centuries by quarrying and by their conversion for use as housing, both by monks in the Byzantine period, when they were used as monks' cells and some even as churches, and later by Muslim villagers "[w]hen the Arab village was built; tombs were destroyed, incorporated in houses or turned into water cisterns and sewage dumps."

The Silwan necropolis is an archaeological site of major significance. In the 19th century, it contained some forty rock-cut tombs of distinguished caliber, of which most were still preserved by the late 1960s. The inscriptions found on three of the tombs are in Hebrew.

The architecture of the tombs and the manner of burial is different "from anything known from contemporary Palestine. Elements such as entrances located high above the surface, gabled ceilings, straight ceilings with a cornice, trough-shaped resting-places with pillows, above-ground tombs, and inscriptions engraved on the facade appear only here." The stone benches on which bodies were laid out and the small square entrance doors are similar to those found elsewhere in Judah. David Ussishkin believes that the architectural similarity to building styles of the Phoenician cities validates the Biblical description of Phoenician influence on the Israelite kingdoms.

If the ancient Israelite kingdoms followed the practice of other west-Semitic kingdoms, the kings themselves would have been buried within the city walls, underneath the royal palace. The scholarly consensus is that the royal palace stood on the opposite hill to the west.

There are three different types of tombs in the Silwan necropolis, each type concentrated in one specific area.

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