Meanwhile, somewhere in the desert ...

Archaeologists from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem appear to have discovered the tomb of King Herod. Or at least something that looks to them as though that's what it is. It was found at the site of the Herodion, Herod's winter palace, in the Judean hills, which is where Flavius Josephus claimed that it was.

This discovery will most likely leave us no wiser as to Herod himself - even his bones were not in the tomb, since the tomb was apparently desecrated by grave robbers a short time after his death. So it is unlikely that we will even know whether he died of a mysterious illness, as is sometimes suggested by scholars, based on his behavior prior to his death.

Nevertheless, even if we learn nothing more than the fact that his tomb was lavish (as is to be expected), in terms of archaeology at least, this is an important find.