Who Owns the Tomb of the Kings?

Jerusalem is full of contested ancient sites, from the sacred acropolis claimed by both Jews and Muslims to the divided territory within the Christian Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Most recently, in May 2021, fighting broke out between Arab residents and Jewish settlers in a neighborhood north of the Old City called Sheikh Jarrah that is home to many ancient tombs attributed to both Jewish and Muslim sages.

A lesser-known conflict in the neighborhood pits religious Jews against France and the Louvre. The trouble began in 1863, when French senator Félicien de Saulcy excavated the tomb and provoked outrage by the local Jewish community which accused him of desecrating graves. A Jewish Frenchwoman named Berthe Levy Bertrand, who was married to a distinguished Parisian archaeologist, tried to purchase the site from an Arab family to preserve it.

It took her a decade and a half, but she succeeded and had a wall built around the tomb with a sign dedicating the site to “science and the veneration of the true children of Israel.” A few years later, in 1886, a prominent male relative of Bertrand with close connections to the French government—and who may have funded the original purchase—turned the deed over to the French government. France has claimed it as government property ever since and kept the site open for tourists until 2010, when it was closed for repairs and renovations.