Ancient structure found near Jesus's tomb in Jerusalem

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Search for Jesus' tomb leads to ancient structure marking his burial dailymail.com

A search focused on the tomb venerated as Jesus's burial place has turned up an ancient structure in Jerusalem, according to reports of work at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The find sits within the complex in the Old City that millions of pilgrims visit each year, drawn to the spot tradition identifies as both crucifixion and burial site.

What makes the discovery notable is less the structure itself than the fact that anything was dug at all. The church has been governed since the mid-nineteenth century by the Status Quo, an arrangement that divides the building among the Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic and Roman Catholic churches and gives each of them veto power over alterations to any part of the shared spaces. No stone may be moved, no trench opened, no wall braced without consent from all three. The result is that one of the most archaeologically contested sites in the world has been excavated only in fragments, in the gaps between three ecclesiastical bureaucracies, while the fabric of the building decays on their joint account. The last major work on the tomb shrine itself — conservation of the Edicule, carried out by a Greek team — took decades to negotiate and proceeded only after the structure was found to be at risk of collapse. Each church guards its portions of the complex as property, income and prestige at once: pilgrim traffic through the doors is a revenue stream, and every alteration risks shifting the balance among the communities that share it. Excavation is not a research question under this regime; it is a diplomatic one.

That leaves archaeology dependent on accident. Structures surface when a floor gives way, when repairs become unavoidable, or when a fragile truce among the three custodians permits a limited look. Whatever has now been found joins a short list of glimpses into the layers beneath the church — quarries, earlier shrines, the remains of the Roman buildings that stood there before Constantine's construction in the fourth century.

The churches have held their vetoes for close to 170 years, and no one proposes to remove them. The structure will be recorded, argued over, and largely left where it lies.