Archaeologists working beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s Old City have found evidence that a garden once existed there
The discoveries came to light during a special excavation as part of a renovation of the church.
They found signs of olive trees and grapevines that are believed to be about 2,000 years old.
This matches what is written in the Gospel of John, which tells of the place where Jesus was crucified and buried.
The biblical text says: “In the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been laid.” (John 19:41)
The remains of the olive trees and grapevines were found through analysis of ancient plants and pollen.
The excavation began in 2022, led by Professor Francesca Romana Stasolla of Sapienza University in Rome, as part of a restoration project.
This was the first major renovation of the church since the 19th century and required approval from the three main religious communities that oversee the site: the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, the Custody of the Holy Land (Roman Catholic) and the Armenian Patriarchate.
Permission from the Israel Antiquities Authority was also required.
“With the renovation work, the religious communities decided to allow archaeological excavations under the church floor,” Stasolla told the Times of Israel.
There are no open excavation areas now, as the churches prepare for Easter, which attracts many pilgrims.
During the work, the team dug under the basilica floor and found layers of earth dating back to the Iron Age, with pots, oil lamps and burial sites.
Evidence of a garden from the time before Christ, found in soil samples, shows that the site was transformed from a quarry to a cultivated area before becoming a cemetery.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is considered the traditional site of Golgotha “”(Calvary) and the tomb of Jesus.
The first church there was built in the 4th century by Emperor Constantine, after his mother Helena identified the site.
Stasolla’s team also found a circular marble base beneath the small shrine that protects the tomb.
This base is believed to be part of Constantine’s original construction, as ancient drawings from the 5th and 6th centuries describe it as round.
Tests are underway to find out where the marble came from and to provide more historical information.
The site has changed a lot over time.
In the time of Jesus, it was a quarry outside the walls of Jerusalem.
Later, it became a cemetery with rock-cut tombs, a common sight in Israel at the time.
In the 1st century, it was outside the city, but in the 2nd century it was included in Jerusalem when the city became Aelia Capitolina.
Emperor Hadrian built a temple to Venus there.
The church of Constantine later replaced this temple and was built to house the crucifixion and burial sites.
Although Constantine built the first church, the site was rebuilt several times.
The Persians burned it in the 7th century, and it was badly damaged in the 11th century by the Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim.
During the Crusader era, the church was renovated and given its present shape.
Archaeologists found low stone walls and filled earth, suggesting that an attempt was made to transform the former quarry into a cultivated area, as the Gospel mentions about the garden.
“Low stone walls were built, and the space between them was filled with earth,” Stasolla said.
“The plant finds were very interesting to us, especially because of what is in the Gospel of John, which seems to have been written or based on someone who knew Jerusalem at that time.
The text speaks of a green area between Calvary and the tomb, and we found evidence of these cultivated fields.”
Although they are still waiting for the results of carbon dating of the garden remains, the archaeological context ties it to the pre-Christian period, giving a sense of what the landscape Jesus may have been like.
Stasolla’s team couldn’t excavate the entire area at once.
They divided the area into zones, excavating one at a time and then covering it all over again.
They now plan to digitally reconstruct all of the areas.
“We can’t see the entire church excavated at the same time, but new technologies are helping us put the bigger picture together in the labs,” Stasolla said.
“It’s like a jigsaw puzzle: we excavate one piece at a time, but in the end we’ll have a complete multimedia reconstruction.”
The next phase of the excavation is expected to begin after Easter, but organizing and publishing the results will take many years.
Stasolla declined to answer whether Jesus was actually buried there, saying, “It’s the faith of those who have believed in the sanctity of this place for thousands of years that has made it exist and change.”
“Whether or not one believes in the story of the Holy Sepulchre, the fact that generations have believed is a fact,” she said, stating that the story of the Holy Sepulchre is “the story of Jerusalem.”
Published in 03/30/2025 03h18
Text adapted by AI (Grok) and translated via Google API in the English version. Images from public image libraries or credits in the caption.
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