Archaeologists Discover Ancient Garden at Site of Christ’s Tomb?
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre during renovation works in March 2025. (Rossella Tercatin/Times of Israel) The Church of the Holy Sepulchre during renovation works in March 2025. (Rossella Tercatin/Times of Israel)
Archaeologists have discovered evidence of an ancient garden at the location of Christ’s supposed burial, bolstering the biblical narrative in John 19:19-20. “Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulcher, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus.”
The Times of Israel reports that at a new archaeological excavation at the Chuch of the Holy Sepulcher, which some believe was built on the location where Jesus was crucified and also buried:
“The presence of olive trees and grapevines was identified through archaeobotanical and pollen analysis on samples retrieved from the excavations under the floor of the ancient basilica. From the archaeological context and strata, it belongs to the pre-Christian era, however, radiocarbon testing has not yet been carried out.”
“We know that the area was already part of the city at the time of Emperor Hadrian when the Romans built Aelia Capitolina,” said Prof. Francesca Romana Stasolla of the Sapienza University of Rome, referring to the Roman city erected on the ruins of Jerusalem in the first half of the 2nd century CE. “However, at the time of Jesus, the area was not part of the city yet.”
The church was built in the early fourth century and has become an incredibly popular pilgrimage destination because some highly questionable and occasionally spurious traditions mark it as a location where Christ died, was buried, and rose again.
Following the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70, the emperor Hadrian started building a new colony on site, finding a rock-cut tomb that he filled in so that a temple to Roman gods could be built over it.
Two hundred years later, after Constantine allowed Christianity to flourish, the temple was torn down, and Mararius, the Bishop of Jerusalem, and Eusebius, the Bishop of Caesarea, helped organize an excavation for the tomb, where all the dirt removed that was previously filled in. Here, they say they found three crosses near the tomb, including one designated the ‘true cross’ on which Jesus died (after people who touched it were supposedly cured of death and illness,) prompting them to suppose they had found Calvary.
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I find it odd that people actually are shocked to find there used to be a garden there.