The tomb of King David is located on Mount Zion, near the Benedictine Abbey of the Assumption. Since the 12th century, this site has been regarded as the burial place of the legendary biblical king.
King David is one of the most striking figures of the Old Testament, the image of an ideal ruler from whose lineage came the Messiah, Jesus Christ, foretold by the prophets. A simple shepherd David was anointed by the prophet Samuel for the future kingdom. A poet and musician, he saved King Saul from the evil spirit by playing the psaltery. A brave warrior, he defeated the giant Goliath with a stone from a sling. Saul became jealous of David's glory, and the future king had to emigrate and even serve his recent enemies, the Philistines. When Saul died, the tribe of Judah proclaimed him king of the Jews. After a two-year civil war, the elders recognised David as king of all Israel.
David became a great king. He turned Jerusalem into a major religious centre, placing the Ark of the Covenant on Mount Zion (the amazed Jews watched an unprecedented sight: the king personally danced in front of the Ark being carried into the Tabernacle). David united Israel, creating a great power from Sinai to the Euphrates. He prepared the erection of the First Temple, leaving everything necessary (blueprints and funds) to his son Solomon.
David was not a perfect man. He seduced Uriah's warrior wife Bathsheba, and sent her husband to certain death. Repenting of this sin, the king composed a heartfelt penitential Psalm (the fiftieth), the words of which have washed souls for millennia - "Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great mercy...". The image of the ruler is depicted in many works of art, the most famous of which is the sculpture "David" by Michelangelo.
The king, who died at the age of seventy, was buried in Jerusalem, "the city of David". But the exact place of his burial is still debated by scholars.
The current tomb (possibly a cenotaph) is located on the ground floor of a structure left over from the medieval church of St Zion. The tomb was discovered in the twelfth century during the renovation of the church. Its history over the eight centuries since then is not well known, because it was ruled by Persians, Crusaders, Saladin's soldiers and Ottoman Turks. The building is now part of a yeshiva (Jewish religious school). On its upper floor is a room considered to be the upper room of the Last Supper. Even higher, on the roof, stands a Muslim minaret.
Between 1948 and 1967, when the Old City was occupied by Jordan, Jewish pilgrims from all over the world flocked here to see and pray at the inaccessible Wailing Wall. It was then (in 1949) that the tomb was covered with velvet with gold embroidered Torah texts. The rooms of the tomb are several quiet, cool rooms with vaulted ceilings. All explanatory inscriptions are in Hebrew. In front of an entrance in tomb there is a monument to the tsar by Russian sculptors Alexander Demin and Alexander Ustenko.
Though the contents of a sarcophagus have never been subjected to scientific analysis, the centuries-old tradition firmly connects it with a name of the legendary ruler from whose family the Saviour has appeared to the world.
