The Tomb of Christ Reborn

Last Wednesday, pilgrims and clergy celebrated completion of the $3.7 million project to restore the Tomb of Jesus in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. The project began in May 2016 after the conclusion of celebrations for the Orthodox Easter. The work took a couple of months longer than expected, but after 10 months the repairs were finished in time for the beginning of the Latin Easter celebrations.

However, scientists now warn that the site is at risk of a catastrophic collapse.

Exposing the Burial Bed

Almost a year ago, I wrote of plans for the repairs to the structure surrounding the tomb, known as the Edicule. I refer the reader to that article for a brief history of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the urgent need for repairs. The restorers from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) took apart the shrine’s façade, stone by stone. Usable parts were cleaned and damaged parts were replaced. Columns were reinforced with titanium rods and mortar was re-grouted. A new ventilation system was installed to alleviate the destruction caused by soot from candles.

The newly restored Edicule sits inside the rotunda of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. (Photograph by Oded Balilty, AP for National Geographic.)

In October, work had proceeded to the point where the original burial bench was unsealed for the first time in at least 200 years. A cream-colored marble slab that sat atop the burial bench for centuries was removed to reveal a layer of soil and fill material beneath. Removal of the debris uncovered something unexpected: another marble slab, gray in color, with a cross carved into its surface. This broken slab possibly dates from the Crusader period (12th century). With just hours to go before the schedule required the tomb to be resealed, the original limestone burial shelf was revealed intact.

Researchers also confirmed the remains of the original limestone tomb walls within the Edicule. A window was cut into the marble cladding of the southern interior wall (on your left as you enter the Edicule) to expose the original cave wall. It was feared that there might be nothing left of the original tomb after the deliberate destruction by the Fatimids in 1009, but it appears that more of the tomb survived than expected.

Throughout the project, extensive information was collected with ground-penetrating radar and thermal scanners. The data will take the NTUA team months to analyze but the plan is to use the information to create a virtual reconstruction of the tomb that will be viewable by anyone. The raw data collected by the NTUA team will eventually be made available to other scientists on a future “Holy Sepulcher Information Platform.”

A New Danger is Revealed

But the restoration of the Edicule revealed that parts of it and the surrounding rotunda of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher were built on an unstable foundation of rubble from earlier structures (Hadrian’s temple, Constantine’s church, Crusader church). Other parts were built on the steeply sloped, limestone bedrock of an ancient quarry. Mortar used to join the stones to the foundation had dissolved due to long-term exposure to moisture.

We think of Jerusalem as being a dry city in a dry country, but it actually gets as much rain per year as London. The problem is that Jerusalem is a city built on rock and the water has to go somewhere. It will collect in the lowest points where the building come in contact with the limestone bedrock. Over time, water will cause mortar to deteriorate.

And if that were not enough, tunnels and voids lurk directly underneath the Edicule and rotunda. For example, an eight-foot deep archaeological trench left over from a dig in the 1960s resides beneath an unsupported concrete slab south of the Edicule, in the area where visitors line up to enter the tomb. Several of the pillars that hold up the rotunda dome are seated atop four feet of unstabilized rubble.

It is ironic that a multi-million dollar project to save the Edicule from imminent collapse has uncovered yet another threat of catastrophic collapse.

To address the new risk, the NTUA restoration team is proposing a 10-month, $6.5 million project to remove the stone paving of the rotunda floor, stabilize the foundation rubble, and install new sewage and rainwater drainage around the perimeter of the rotunda.

Excavation of 1000 square feet of floor raises the potential for some serious archaeology at the most revered site in Christendom. Scientists will most likely be able to learn more about the various buildings constructed on the site and the ancient quarry that was used for graves in New Testament times.

The More You Know…

As a partner in the project, National Geographic paid for exclusive rights to document the restoration. The most detailed information and photographs will be found in articles on the NatGeo website. For further reading on the unsealing of the burial bed, see this article, and for a discussion of the completed restoration and new-found dangers to the Edicule, see this article.

An exclusive look at the restoration project will appear on an episode of Explorer on April 10 on the National Geographic Channel and the video will probably be posted later on the NatGeo.com site.

And, if I learn anything more, I’ll write it up and post it here as well.

Raising the Tomb of Christ from the Dead

The holiest site in Christendom is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Under one roof, it memorializes the traditional sites of both the crucifixion and the resurrection. Lots of places in Israel claim that “Jesus was here,” so what are the chances that these have any more historical provenance than the supposed location of the Last Supper or the Garden of Gethsemane?

Constantine’s Church

The Emperor Constantine sought to unify the Roman Empire under Christianity, and around 325 CE he decided to build churches over the sites where Jesus was born, buried, and ascended. The locals told Constantine’s engineers that, two centuries before, the Emperor Hadrian had constructed a temple over the site of Jesus’ tomb. According to the Church historian Eusebius, as Constantine’s workers cleared away the rubble and fill dirt from Hadrian’s temple, they found a tomb which was obviously that of Christ’s.

Eusebius doesn’t say why it was obvious this particular tomb was that of Jesus. Perhaps there was some graffiti written or carved on it from the time when it was venerated before it was buried under Hadrian’s temple. Or maybe the placement of the tomb directly under a statue to Jupiter was the sign that they had found the right tomb.

In any event, the workmen isolated the tomb from the surrounding rock and adorned it with decorations and columns. It was called the Edicule (Latin for “little house”). Originally the Edicule was a free-standing structure in the open, separate from the church Constantine had built around the rock of Calvary, but fifty years after the church’s dedication, a rotunda was constructed around it.

In 1009, the Moslem caliph al-Hakim ordered Constantine’s church to be demolished and the Edicule was hacked to pieces. Eventually, the present Church of the Holy Sepulcher was rebuilt in its place and over the centuries suffered a series of natural and man-made disasters. A fire in the rotunda in 1808 caused the dome over the Edicule to collapse and seriously damage the Edicule itself. It was rebuilt in 1810, but after earthquakes in 1927 and 1934, the marble cladding surrounding the Edicule became so unstable that the British (who were responsible for the Holy Land back then) had iron girders erected in 1947 to keep it from falling apart.

The Edicule inside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem showing the steel framework keeping it from falling apart. (Photo by author, 1993).

Status Quo

Repairs have been stalled for decades as the various groups responsible for the Church of the Holy Sepulcher squabble over what to do. The Church is primarily controlled by the Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Armenians churches. Each have their own portions of the church that they control, but according to the status quo decree of 1853, nothing can be changed in the public areas unless all parties agree. No detail is too small to argue about. A ladder was on a window ledge over the church’s entrance when the status quo decree went into effect and it has been there ever since. It is now called the “Immovable Ladder.”

So it was to my great surprise when I read an announcement released Holy Week (3/22/16) that the Greeks, Latins and Armenians had agreed on a major restoration to the Edicule. Work could begin as soon as May 1 after Orthodox Easter celebrations are over and will take at least 8 months. During this time, the entire Edicule will be dismantled and rebuilt. Usable parts will be cleaned and weakened or broken parts will be replaced.

What can we expect to see? As the marble cladding is removed, it will expose the masonry of the 1555 structure. There should also be what remains of the native limestone of the original tomb. Archaeologists will get an opportunity to examine, measure and record the ruins and give us a better idea of what the original tomb might have looked like.

The Empty Tomb

Based on the best information we have today, the original tomb was a small cave with two chambers carved into the side of a hill or cliff. The outer chamber was a partly-covered forecourt with a low entrance leading into the fully-enclosed rock-cut interior burial chamber. The entrance would have been closed by a large stone. There would have been rock-cut burial benches on two or three sides of the inner chamber.

Reconstruction (A) of the form of the rock-cut tomb within the Edicule and (B) of its conversion by the construction of Constantine's Edicule. (Drawn by Steven Ashley, taken from The Tomb of Christ by Martin Biddle).

According to Eusebius, Constantine’s engineers cut away the rock of the surrounding cliff, including the outer forecourt, to isolate the burial chamber. The other burial benches may have been sealed up with masonry so as to leave only the bench on the inside right exposed, since Mark 16:5 reports the women entering the empty tomb found an angel sitting there instead of Jesus’ body.

Is this really the tomb of Christ? It is impossible to say but it is plausible. Whereas the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is inside the walls of Jerusalem today, around 30 CE the area was a disused quarry outside the walls. Today, a short distance from the Edicule, visitors to the church can see small burial chambers carved into the rock dating back to the 1st century CE, so the area was a definitely a gravesite until Jerusalem’s walls were extended around the area in the early 40’s and the site was brought inside the city.

Nothing is known of the site prior to 130 CE when Hadrian filled in the quarry and paved over it to construct his temple. It is very possible that the empty tomb would have been venerated as the site of the resurrection. Did Hadrian intentionally construct his temple over a site revered by Christians in order to suppress the new religion? Again, we don’t know, but later Christians certainly attributed bad intentions to Hadrian’s choice of construction site.

So I will be eagerly awaiting news of any discoveries made during the restoration work on the Edicule. I’m sure a PBS Nova or National Geographic program will be produced documenting the project. But even if surviving 1st or 2nd century graffiti saying “Jesus was here” is found, that would not prove scientifically this was the tomb of Jesus, only that early Christians venerated it as though it was.

If I learn anything more about the restoration, I’ll post it here, so watch this space.