Is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher really on the site where Jesus died and was buried?

The surprising answer: very probably, yes! But, how was it possible for Constantine, 300 years after the Crucifixion, to find the place of Christ's death and resurrection? In this city, with thousands of anonymous tombs lying around its ancient walls, how did he locate the exact tomb of Jesus? Were there any special features that helped him to identify it?

The most direct descriptions of Jesus' burial are found in the Gospels. For example, John 19:17 says: "Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha.)" The three synoptic Gospels — Matthew, Mark and Luke — give a similar in their description. By applying the Gospels to old plans and excavations under the city, archaeologists have pieced together details about the route Jesus took to the place of his death.

We don't know how long he had to walk from the time he took the cross, but eventually he would have come to a gate. This was an angled gate and he would have had to struggle through two right-hand turns before coming out into the the open, just on the eastern edge of an old rock quarry. There, just below the walls, on a little hill that had been eroded into two eyes resembling a skull, he was crucified. He suffered for six hours and, at three-o'clock in the afternoon, he died and was taken down from the cross. Rushing to beat the start of the Sabbath (which began, then as now, on Friday at sunset), two secret disciples, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, prepared his body for burial with a mixture of dry spices — "myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds." (John 19:35). They wrapped him in strips of linen in accordance with Jewish burial customs and laid him to rest in a previously unused rock-cut tomb located in a piece of cultivated land or garden (Greek "kepos"), as John states, near the site of the crucifixion.

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher fits this description because it is believed to contain not only a tomb, but 39 yards away to the northeast, a 16-foot-high rocky outcrop on which Jesus' cross stood. When the church was built the softer surrounding rock was cut away and the remainder can be seen below the altar in the Greek Orthodox chapel (right over the summit of the rock. Although the rock is protected by glass, it can be touched through a round opening under the altar.

Excavations have further disclosed an extensive stone quarry beneath the church dating from the First Temple period until the 1st century BC (pottery in the fill dates back as far as the 7th century BC). Archaeologists tell us that Jewish tombs were often cut into old quarries. There are, in fact, some 1st century AD tombs lying only 49 feet away from the olive-wood edicule (Latin "little house") containing the supposed rock-hewn tomb of Christ. They can be seen (right) by walking to the back of the edicule to a tiny chapel belonging to the Copts, and behind it — beyond the pillars of the rotunda — another chapel belonging to the Syrians-Jacobites. From this chapel one can enter an anonymous burial cave in the rock proving that this area was indeed a Jewish cemetery. The quarry was filled with reddish-brown soil and the area became a garden for growing figs, cereals, olives and carob. It appears that both the garden and the cemetery were in use at the time of Jesus' crucifixion. This fits exactly with the description in John's Gospel: "At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no-one had ever been laid." (John 19:41)

Everyone visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulcher realizes that today's building is well within the walls of the Old City. Under Jewish law, tombs had to be located outside city walls because they are considered unclean. What was a cemetery doing inside the city? Records tell us that Jerusalem expanded over the Holy Sepulcher site only in the 40's AD, during the reign of Herod Agrippa I, a few years after Jesus' crucifixion. At the time of Jesus, the western city wall was located farther to the east. Of this so-called "Second Wall," nothing has been found. However, you can look down on the city and see where it ran; the foundations of buildings constructed on what would have been the area of the city at Jesus' time are at a higher level. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is situated on a lower, more recent level. Therefore, the site was outside the "Second Wall," and the very earliest the tombs found there could have been created was ten years after Jesus' death.

Again, there is the question as to how Constantine was able to locate Jesus' tomb?

There are indications of a nearly continuous Christian presence in the city from the time of the Crucifixion through the 2nd century AD, when the emperor Hadrian built his pagan city of Aelia Capitolina over the ruins of the city destroyed by Titus in 70 AD. These early Christians would have remembered the site of the Crucifixion and they would have gone to his burial place to pray. After Hadrian had his temple to Aphrodite built over the site, then naturally the Christian memory was intensified by bitterness. He had excluded them from visiting the tomb of their holiest person. Subsequently, when visitors came, they were told, presumably with great anger, that Jesus' tomb was right there, buried beneath Hadrian's pagan temple. That's where he was crucified, that's where he was buried!

Even with precise directions from local Christians, what made Constantine so certain he had found right burial chamber after dismantling the pagan temple and dug down into the cemetery below? What did he see that convinced him that he had discovered the exact tomb. Was there something about it that differentiated it from the other tombs there? Constantine's biographer, the 4th century AD bishop Eusebius, who was present when the tomb was unearthed, stated that it provided clear and visible proof of Christ's resurrection. What clue had he seen?

The answer may lie elsewhere, in tombs like those in the Roman Catacombs, where early Christians came to pray and hold remembrances to saints who had died for the faith. Before leaving, they left their prayers and names in the form of graffiti, scratched in the walls around the burial niches. Undoubtedly, Constantine and Eusebius noted this same behavior by Christian pilgrims to Christ's tomb before it was buried by Hadrian. As in the Catacombs they had scratched "holy graffiti" on one side or another of the tomb to mark their visits. This tradition of Christian graffiti can be seen today in various places in the church. Over the course of some 900 years, Crusaders and other pilgrims have scratched hundreds of visible prayers into the stones, mostly in the form of crosses (right). If the earliest Christians had acted in a similar fashion, leaving their marks behind on the tomb of Christ, then Eusebius and Constantine would have seen clear evidence that the burial chamber they discovered, then enshrined, really did belong to Christ.

Recipe for "Mutabak," provided by Samir Zalaimo, great-grandson of Mohammed Zalatimo, the original founder of this 140 year-old shop — still in its same location near the wall surrounding the Church of Holy Sepulcher. The recipe is simple:

Ingredients:

• Dough (normal dough used for baking bread, but hand rolled — not machine rolled — the secret of Zalatimo Mutabak.
• Syrup (equal parts water and sugar mixed together and boiled until thickened)
• White cheese (normal white curd cheese, which starts out salty, and is soaked in water to draw out the salt. The water may have to be changed four or five times to make the cheese sweet enough).
• Powdered sugar

Cut dough into circles approximately the size of a pita. Add a small amount of cheese. Fold dough into a square and baked until brown. After baking, cut into four squares, cover in syrup. Finally, sprinkled powdered sugar on top.

Mutabak is best served hot; when it cools it is only a cold, sweet cheese sandwich.