JERUSALEM — French authorities reopened one of Jerusalem’s most magnificent ancient tombs to the public for the first time in over a decade, despite a dispute over access to the archaeological and holy site in the city’s volatile eastern half.
The French Consulate General reopened the Tomb of the Kings last month. Tensions between French authorities and Israeli nationalists and ultra-Orthodox Jews who seek open worship at the tomb and challenge France’s ownership continue to make day to day operations problematic at the site.
France closed the site for an extensive $1.1 million restoration in 2009.
The Tomb of the Kings is an underground burial complex dating to the first century B.C. and “definitely one of the most elaborately decorated tombs that we have from the early Roman period in Jerusalem,” said Orit Peleg-Barkat, a Hebrew University archaeologist. Access to the interior burial chambers is prohibited.
In 1878, a French Jewish woman purchased the property through the French consul in Jerusalem, and eight years later one of her heirs donated it to the French government.