248 Nadav Na’aman plan and lack of refinement in the execution of the installations discovered by Weill, compared to the quality of the tombs discovered at the Silwan necropolis of Jerusalem (14) indicate that they should not be identified as the royal tombs of the kings of Judah (15). To shed more light on the possible location of the royal tombs we must turn our attention to neighbouring ancient Near Eastern kingdoms. Recently Franklin drew attention to two neglected hewn tombs excavated by the Harvard Expedition at Samaria (16). They are located under adjoining palace rooms of Building Period I, and were cut at different phases of the early palace. She suggested that Tomb A was prepared for Omri and Tomb B for Ahab or one of his heirs. Six underground vaulted chambers were discovered in the excavations of the southeast side of the Old Palace at the city of Assur (17). Sarcophagi made of basalt or limestone were found in these chambers, identified by inscriptions as those of Ashur-bel-kala (1074-1057 BCE), Ashurnas≥irpal (883-859) and Shamshi-Adad V (823-810). Sennacherib too was buried at Assur, as indicated by two inscriptions on bricks discovered in the city (18). Weidner demonstrated that when Ashurbanipal was the crown prince, he built a mausoleum (b^t kima˙˙i) for his burial in the city of Assur (19). Eshar- ˙amat, Esarhaddon’s wife, was also buried in Assur, possibly in the same compound as the kings of Assyria (20). Finally, in the so-called ‘the Sin of Sargon’ text, Sennacherib inquired the gods why his father, Sargon, ‘was killed [in the enemy country and] was not b[uried] in his house’(21). It is thus evident that the kings of Assyria were buried in their ‘house’, probably in the city of Assur, the ancient capital of Assyria. Four vaulted royal tombs have been discovered within the confines of the Northwest Palace at Calah. The inscriptions indicate that they were the tombs of the queens of Assyria, who were buried together with other members of —————— Biblical Period (eds. S. AHITUV – A. MAZAR) (Jerusalem 2000) 234-237 (Hebrew); V.A. HUROWITZ, “Burial in the Bible”, Beit Mikra 161 (2000) 134-137 (Hebrew). (14) For the tombs discovered at Silwan, see D. USSISHKIN, The Village of Silwan. The Necropolis from the Period of the Judahite Kingdom (Jerusalem 1993). (15) BARKAY, “Location of the Tombs”, 75-77; idem, “Necropolis of Jerusalem”, 234-237. Kenyon (Digging up Jerusalem, 31-32, 47, 156-157) also dismissed Weill’s identification of the installations as royal tombs. Since remains of plaster were detected therein she suggested that originally they were cisterns. (16) N. FRANKLIN, “The Tombs of the Kings of Israel. Two Recently Identified 9th- Century Tombs from Omride Samaria”, ZDPV 119 (2003) 1-11. (17) W. ANDRAE, Das wiedererstandene Assur (Leipzig 1938) 136-140; A. HALLER, Die Gräber und Grüfte von Assur (WVDOG 65; Berlin 1954) 170-181; The complex of underground vaulted chambers was probably called b^t πarr˝ni ma’d¨ti (‘House of many Kings’) in a distribution text from Assur. See E. EBELING, Stiftungen und Vorschriften für assyrische Tempel (Berlin 1954) 18-20. (18) D.D. LUCKENBILL, The Annals of Sennacherib (OIP II; Chicago 1924) 151, Nos. XIII-XIV. (19) E.F. WEIDNER, “Assurbânipal in Assur”, AfO 13 (1939-1941) 213-216. (20) EBELING, Stiftungen, 18-20. For the rites at the death of Assyrian kings, see J. MCGINNIS, “A Neo-Assyrian Text Describing a Royal Funeral”, State Archives of Assyria Bulletin 1 (1987) 1-11. (21) H. TADMOR – B. LANDSBERGER – S. PARPOLA, “The Sin of Sargon and Sennacherib’s Last Will”, State Archives of Assyria Bulletin 3 (1989) 10-11, lines 19-20.