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On Mount Zion we have King David's tomb/the Grave of the Last Kings of the house of David (yes, you read that correctly. NOT the grave of King David). According to the famous tour guide Hayim Mageni z"l, the actual Mt. Zion is another reference to Mt. Moriah, where the Temple stood, and what is presently known as Mt. Zion is actually a shortened version of "HaHar sheRoim Memenu Et Zion", the mount from which you can see Zion. Similarly, what is today known as Kever David is actually (in his opinion based on many sources) a shortened version of "Kevrei Malchut Beit David," the graves of the kings of the House of David.
According to many other opinions, this is indeed the place where King David and other kings were buried. Don't let the differing opinions deter you from visiting. The spirituality is there no matter who is buried underneath. Across the way is the tomb of Oskar Schindler of "Schindlers List." Cross the street by the bus stop, go through the gate and down 2 levels and look for the gravestone covered with stones (as opposed to flowers). Recent excavations outside of Zion Gate, sponsored by the Israel Antiquities Authorities and the Ir David Foundation, have uncovered the southern wall of the city which was constructed at the time of the Hasmoneans in the second century BC. The original excavation took place int he 1890's by archaeologist Frederick Jones Bliss and architect Archibald Dickie of the Palestine Exploration Fund. Thier excavation shafts had been filled in and forgotten until current dig director Yehiel Zelinger undertook the new excavation to identify and re-excavate the walls. The following information is quoted from the November/December 2008 edition of Biblical Archaeological Reveiw on the finds on Mt. Zion: "The fortifications themselves are of typical Hasmonean construction. The blocks have a dressed boss protruding in the center and are laid out in a header-stretcher pattern that required no mortar. The excavations revealed a tower on this site that survived to an impressive height of 10.5 feet (3.2 m). The IAA has identified the tower as part of the “First Wall” described by Josephus in The Jewish Wars.Located only 13 feet above this tower wall, and directly in line with it, excavators also revealed another city wall dating to the Byzantine period (324–640 A.D.), when Jerusalem was a major site of Christian pilgrimage. The construction of this later wall is traditionally attributed to Empress Eudocia, who lived during the first half of the fifth century and settled in Jerusalem after separating from her husband, Emperor Theodosius II. Zelinger and his team recovered numerous pottery sherds in a soil fill abutting the wall that helped them date the construction to before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. According to Zelinger this area was probably a rubbish dump just outside the ancient city, which explains the number of broken and fragmentary vessels. This bowl fragment dates to the late Roman period (third–fourth century A.D.)."
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