There are two sites in Jerusalem which claim to be the authentic burial place of Christ. One, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, boasts a tradition going back to the fourth century (see “The Place of Christ’s Crucifixion and Burial” by W. Harold Mare in the Spring 1974 issue of Bible and Spade). The Garden Tomb, on the other hand, was not a contender until the 19th century when the suggestion was made that it was the real burial place of Christ. This claim was based largely on its proximity to a skull-shaped hill, now known as “Gordon’s Calvary,” identified as the Golgotha, or place of a skull, of Matthew 27:33, Mark 15:22 and John 19:17. Although the Garden Tomb is aesthetically satisfying and probably gives a better idea of what Christ’s burial place was really like, it unfortunately lacks any evidence to indicate that it was a first-century tomb. Recent work by two Israeli scholars, Gabriel Barkay of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University, and Amos Kloner of the Department of Antiquities and Museums, indicates that the Garden Tomb was undoubtedly part of a cemetery dating to the end of the Iron Age, or the end of the Israelite Monarchy.
The two scholars surveyed a number of burial caves in and around “Gordon’s Calvary,” which is located just north of the Turkish city wall of Old Jerusalem not far from the Damascus Gate. Large parts of the north slope of the hill are on the grounds of the Dominican Monastery of St. Étienne (the École Biblique et Archéologique Française) and the Garden Tomb Association. In the hill are several rock-cut burial caves, some destroyed by quarrying and others cleared in the 1870’s and 1880’s. These caves possess features common to burial caves of the end of the Iron Age well
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known from other sites in Judah. The south side of “Gordon’s Calvary,” where the skull shape is to be seen, is a steep cliff, probably the result of post-Iron Age quarrying. Following is a report of Barkay’s and Kloner’s examination of two burial caves on the property of the Dominican Monastery and their observations on the Garden Tomb.
“The first cave is incorporated in a building which has served as the burial-place of the monastery since the 19th century. A courtyard is cut in the rock in front of the cave, from which one enters a large antechamber, measuring 5.30×4.30m. and about 3.60m. in height, and oriented eastwards. At the meeting-point of the walls and ceiling of the antechamber a double right-angled cornice is cut in the rock. From the antechamber openings lead into two burial chambers on the north and two on the east. One of these eastern chambers has another chamber behind it. On the southern side of the antechamber is an entrance to one burial chamber, and it seems that another one was destroyed by later tombs, probably in the Byzantine period.
“The burial chambers are all of the same type, with burial benches along the walls opposite the entrance and on both sides. The benches at the sides of the entrance have small head-rests cut in the rock with a depression for the head, all at the end nearest the entrance. The benches opposite the entrance are longer than those at the sides and they have head-rests at both ends. In the easternmost burial chamber, entered through another chamber, deep resting-places resembling sarcophagi replace the benches. These resting-places are 0.50m. wide and approximately the same in depth. Along the walls are hewn shelves that originally supported the stone slabs which covered the resting-places. It appears that the burials in the innermost chamber were the most respected ones, to judge from the difference in the arrangements there; compare the laying of King Asa’s body in a ‘bed’ inside a sepulcher (2 Chronicles 16:14).
“The second burial cave is north of the first, close to the church of St. Étienne. The cave has a large antechamber whose entrance faces north. In the eastern wall of the antechamber are entrances to three burial chambers, of which the southern is the largest and has suffered destruction. It has a right-angled cornice cut in the rock at the junction of the ceiling and walls, but no benches or other burial arrangements. The western wall of the antechamber also has three entrances leading to burial chambers. Two more chambers are
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hewn in the north wall; their entrances are on either side of the modern steps leading down to the antechamber from the main entrance. Opposite the present entrance, in the southern wall, there seems to be the original entrance which has been walled in by modern masonry.
“All the burial chambers but the southeastern one are of the same pattern. They have three benches along the walls, and the benches have head-rests with depressions. A slightly elevated parapet around the benches retained the corpse and the burial goods in position. In both burial caves rectangular openings below the benches lead to irregular hollows cut in the rock. These hollows are repositories and some still contain heaps of bones. Some of the entrances to the burial chambers are higher than human height, and they have recessed frames around them. The standard of the rock-cutting is very high and all the surfaces are fine and smooth, with minute care evident in the tooling.
“Only a few meters from the first cave, cut into the same rocky cliff, is the ‘Garden Tomb,’ identified by General Gordon as the tomb of Christ. It consists of two chambers; the first is entered from the south and an entrance leads to the second chamber from its eastern side. The ceilings of both chambers are straight, though the tooling of the surfaces is rougher than in the St. Étienne tombs. It seems that opposite the entrance was a burial bench which has now disappeared, and that in the inner chamber were three benches or resting-places, removed during secondary use in the Byzantine period. Remains of painted crosses and Christian monograms could be seen on the walls. A group of pottery owned by the Garden Tomb Association was most probably found in excavations in front of the tomb from 1873 onwards. In addition to medieval pottery, it includes three complete thick-based oil lamps and the rim and handle of a burnished deep bowl, to be dated to the seventh century B.C.
“It appears that we have here another necropolis of Jerusalem during the monarchy, belonging to the period when the city reached its maximal expansion. The caves here described join others, including two unearthed north of the Damascus Gate during the British Mandate.”
(Burial caves north of Damascus Gate, Jerusalem, by Gabriel Barkay and Amos Kloner in Israel Exploration Journal 26 (1976), pp. 55-57; see also Ancient Jerusalem’s Funerary Customs and Tombs, by L. Y. Rahmani in Biblical Archaeologist 44 (1981). pp. 229-235, esp. p. 234.)
Bible and Spade 11:2 (Spring 1982)