Kidron

In the Jewish tradition, it is the Jerusalem part of Kidron that is especially relevant.

The Tanakh mentions it as a site of idolatry and sacrifice to pagan deities.

It especially highlights a small westward offshoot of Kidron, called the Valley of Hinnom (Gehenna).

In the Kidron valley itself, according to Tanakhical texts, once stood the altars of pagan gods.

But they were burned, and their ashes were scattered over Kidron in the first temple period, in the reign of Asa and Yoshiyahu.

This valley might be considered the site of the very first Jerusalem founded by King David.

The nucleus of the future huge city stood practically at this "crossroads", where Hinnom comes out of Kidron to the West, by the Gihon Spring, still existing today and from time immemorial associated with important rituals described in the Tanakh.

As early as the eighth century B.C., under King Hizkiyahu, the famous water duct from Gihon to Jerusalem was laid, the one that is mentioned in theTanakh (Divrei Hayamim II; 32:30):

"It was Hezekiah who blocked the upper outlet of the Gihon spring and channeled the water down to the west side of the City of David". 

Closer to our times, this water duct was discovered by the British archaeologist Charles Warren.

Throughout the First Temple era, a cemetery was gradually emerging around Jerusalem.

And since the earliest city was practically in Kidron, its inhabitants would bury their dead there, right outside the city limits. 

Most likely, when the Bible mentions David being buried inside his city, we should interpret it just as him being buried at the city cemetery, that is on the slope of the Kidron ravine, where many ancient graves in various states of preservation have been found.

Even though the tomb of David hasn't been identified by archaeologists, they identified with a certain degree of certainty the tomb of his son Absalom.

They assume that this luxurious Greek-style burial vault was erected over the grave of Absalom.

However, the overtly Greek origin of the tombstone casts doubt on such attribution.

This colossal monument with a cone-shaped dome and Ionic order columns, hollow inside, was raised in the I century of the new era and named after the son of King David by the famous Jewish traveler of the XII century Benjamin of Tudela 

From that moment, the monument became associated with legends about a son who rebelled against his father and the aftermath of this revolt.

Using the story of Absalom and his tragic death because of committed sins as a cautionary tale for disobedient sons, for centuries Jewish fathers would come here with their offspring to cast small stones into the walls of the vault.

Jews call any tombstone "nefesh", which means "soul''.

It does not matter where the bones of the deceased lie: with the coming of the Messiah, according to the Prophecy, they will be covered with flesh

and with trumpets calling they will appear in the Yeoshafat valley (valley of the Judgement, also here next to Kidron).

The part of Kidron that separates the Mount of Olives from the Temple Mount has a special name, "Emek Yeoshafat," which means "The Valley in which God will judge."

The book of Joel says:

Let the nations be roused; let them advance into the Valley of Jehoshaphat, for there I will sit to judge all the nations on every side".

(Joel 3:2-12)

A little to the south of the tomb of Absalom stands the only burial vault in Kidron that we have full knowledge about.

Its lintel displays a perfectly preserved inscription:

“This is the burial monument of Eliezer, Hania, Yoazar, Yehuda, Shimon, Yochanan Benei (sons of) Yosef Ben (son of) Oved Yosef and Elazar Benei (sons of) Hania, Kohanim of the Hezir family”.

The Hezir family did in fact exist – it is mentioned in two books of the Tanakh.

Judging by the design of the entrance to the vault and by the Doric order of the columns, it can be argued that this is a burial site of the Hasmonean period (the era of the reign of the Jewish kings from the Hasmonean dynasty), i.e. II century BC.

A few meters south of the tomb "Benei Hezir" there is a large monolith - a parallelepiped with Ionic order columns carved on its walls and a regular pyramid standing on top of it.

There are several legends about this structure, and almost all of them have something to do with the name of Zechariah.

Jewish tradition believes this to be the tomb of the high priest Zechariah, stoned to death on the Temple Mount by masses displeased with his admonitions.

Tradition holds that it was this cruel and vile murder that caused heavenly wrath and, consequently, the destruction of the First Temple, because a priest had been killed, innocent blood was shed and Temple premises were desecrated.

Christians believe this to be the tomb of another biblical Zechariah, the Father of John the Baptist, who was also high priest and was also killed inside the Temple.

And thirdly, there is another traditional explanation of what this site is, and it has nothing to do with the name of Zechariah.

The Armenian Church believes that Jesus' younger brother, the first Patriarch of Jerusalem, James, had originally been buried here and later reburied in The Cathedral of Saint James in the Armenian Quarter.

Further south along the Kidron, one finds many caves that were once used as burial sites, as well as many later headstones thrown down into the ravine by local inhabitants between 1948 and 1967, when this land was considered Jordanian territory.

Where the Kidron ravine turns East, toward the desert, one finds the ruins of another ancient burial.

According to legend, this is the tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh's daughter, one of the wives of King Shlomo (Solomon).

In the 1880s, this tomb was purchased by the Head of Russian Orthodox Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem Archimandrite Antonin (Andrej Kapustin)