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France maintains order as visitors flock to Jerusalem's Tombs of the Kings

A 2,000-year-old funerary compound in Jerusalem has been marked by controversy since its reopening to the public in 2019.
One of the several burial chambers of the Tombs of the Kings, owned and administered by the French Consulate of Jerusalem, is pictured on December 28, 2018 in East Jerusalem. - The ancient site, which is considered the grandest burial compound in the holy city and has been closed for years, includes a sophisticated burial cave that has a mechanism for sealing the entrance by means of a stone that rotates on a hinge. (Photo by THOMAS COEX / AFP)        (Photo credit should read THOMAS COEX/AFP via Getty Imag

At the end of Salah al-Din Street in Jerusalem, just north of the Old City, a sign reads in French “Tombeau des Rois” or the “Tombs of the Kings.”

The funerary complex is known to Jerusalemites as the “Tombs of the Sultans.” Pausanias, a Greek author, historian and geographer of the 2nd century AD, described it as the second most beautiful tomb in the world, after the Tomb of Mausolus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

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