47 Newsletter
The Ancient America Foundation is a Research Corporation originally founded in 1949 under the name of The University Archaeological Society (UAS) at Brigham Young University. The name changed to The Society for Early Historic Archaeology (SEHA) in 1967 when it became independent of BYU. This organization was absorbed into The Ancient America Foundation (AAF) in 1985 as a tax exempt organization for the purpose of disseminating knowledge of archaeological discoveries bearing on latter-day scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon; also on the archaeological activates and viewpoints of the society. The viewpoint of the author does not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the Society.
SEHA #148 April 1982 Editor: Ross T. Christensen
148.0 Investigations of the Turin Shroud. By Giovanni Tata
148.1 Archaeological evidences for the 1981 Garden Tomb at Jerusalem. By John A. Tvedtnes
148.0 INVESTIGATIONS OF THE TURIN SHROUD. By Giovanni Tata, curator of the Utah Pioneer Trail State Park, Salt Lake City. A paper read at the Thirtieth Annual Symposium on the Archaeology of the Scriptures, held at Brigham Young University on September 26, 1981. (Further information about the author appears below, 148.4)
THE SHROUD OF TURIN is a strip of linen measuring 4.36 by 1.10 meters (approximately 14 by 3 feet). It contains a faint, life-size image of the front and back of an unclothed, bearded man with long hair. The body, anatomically correct, bears what appear to be marks of scourging, crucifixion, and piercing by thorns and lance, which coincide with accounts of the crucified Jesus of Nazareth. In Mark 15:46 we read:
And [Joseph of Arimathea] bought fine linen, and took him down, and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulcher, which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulcher.
Many believe that this strip of linen is the very cloth that Joseph placed under and over the body of Jesus in a rock-cut tomb near Golgotha nearly 200.0 years ago.
HISTORY OF THE SHROUD
The traceable history of the Shroud goes back only 600 years. For the first 12 centuries its history is rather obscure, and only conjectures can be presented in attempting to reconstruct it.
A British writer, Ian Wilson, states that the Shroud was in Jerusalem until AD 57, when persecution forced the Christians to disperse. In order to save it, he says, they hid it in Edessa (modern Urfa), Turkey, in a niche above the western gate, where it was rediscovered in the sixth century AD. It was then removed to Constantinople, where it disappeared during the occupation of the city by the Crusaders in the year 1204. The most believable hypothesis is that a Crusader stole it and took it with him when he returned to France, where it was passed down as a precious heirloom.
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Fig1. SHROUD OF TURIN: CLOSE UP OF THE FACE. Compare the photographic negative (left) with the positive (right).
In 1353, the owner of the Shroud was Geoffrey de Charny. He left it in the custody of the friars of Lirey, who put it on public display. From this time to the present, its existence can be clearly documented.
In 1453, de Charny's granddaughter surrendered the Shroud to Anna di Lusignano, wife of Duke Ludovico of the house of Savoy, the same house which, later became the royal family of Italy.
1532 is an important, if unfortunate, year for the Shroud. A fire erupted in the sacristy of the church at Chambery, where it was kept at the time. The cover of the silver box that contained the folded linen melted, and a drop of hot metal burned through the layers of cloth. The scorches and patches along the fold lines and the symmetrical watermarks are known to be the result of this fire and the subsequent rescue and repair.
In 1578, Emanuele Filiberto, duke of Savoy, moved the Shroud across the Alps to his new capital, Turin. In 1978, on the occasion of the Second International Congress of Sindonology, held to celebrate the 400th anniversary of its safekeeping in that city, a team of scientists was granted unlimited access to it for detailed investigation. ("Sindonology" derives from the Greek word sindon, meaning fine linen.)
During five days and nights, they performed a set of non-destructive, data-gathering experiments, which I shall refer to again after first giving a brief description of the image on the cloth and its characteristics.
DESCRIPTION
Generally speaking, the stains of this body image increase in intensity from the lower limbs to the head, with the facial features particularly pronounced. The face, incidentally, resembles the most ancient representations of the Christ.
Robert Bucklin, a scientist, with the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office, has divided the injuries to the body, as indicated by the markings on the Shroud, into five groups:
Fig. 2: IMPRESSIONS ON TH SHROUD. Left, the front of the body. Right, the back. 1. Wound on the right foot. 2. Watermarks produced when the fire was put out. 3. Wound in side. 4. Folds of the cloth. 5. Wounds left by scourging. 6. Heal and sole of right foot. 7. Line of Charring left by the fire. 8. Mending done by Chambery nuns of St. Clare. 9. Abrasions caused by a heavy weight on the shoulders. 10 Wounds on the back of the neck left by a crown of thorns. 11. Wounds left by thorns on the forehead. 12. Wounds on left wrist.
1. The first group, consisting of marks on the skin of the front and back of the body, are considered to be mainly the result of scourging. Roman whips, or flagra, of the first century AD terminated in dumbbell-shaped lead weights, which fit the markings of the Shroud. Bucklin suggests that, since there are no similar injuries on the arms, they must have been elevated over the head at the time of scourging.
Also on the back are two large discolored areas over the shoulder blades. According to Bucklin these markings are consistent with bleeding from superficial abrasions, probably produced by a heavy weight, such as the horizontal member of a cross supported on the back of the victim.
2. The second group of injuries consists of piercing lesions in the wrists. A bloodstain can be seen over the left wrist. This stain does not correspond with the palm of the hand, for the distance between the mark and the fingertips is too great.
Also, one can see on the Shroud the imprints of four fingers of each hand, but none for the thumbs. Bucklin theorizes that they cannot be seen because, as the nails passed between the bones of the wrists, they penetrated or stimulated the median nerves, which produced flexion of the thumbs, and with the onset of rigor mortis they maintained this position and so made no marks.
3. The third group consists of marks left by piercing lesions of the feet and the blood, which covered them. The right foot exhibits very clear outlines of the toes and heel. At the spot where the foot was pierced appears a square mark with a pale halo surrounding it. The imprint of the left foot is barely visible. Bucklin suggests that the right foot was placed directly against the surface of the cross, thus becoming completely covered with blood, while the left foot rested on the instep of the right foot.
4. The fourth group of injuries consists of stains about the head. Several of them are found on the forehead. A row of blood prints appears around the circumference of the scalp, while others are located higher up. According to Bucklin a cap-like object is suggested, rather than a simple circlet of sharppointed objects.
5. The last major wound depicted on the Shroud of Turin is that on the chest. It corresponds to the area of the fifth and sixth ribs.
INVESTIGATIONS
This unique relic has stimulated the interest of a multitude of scholars. The Shroud has been tested by more scientific methods than any other object in existence. Art history, archaeology, medicine, photography, microscopy, palynology (pollen analysis), space science; and computer science are continuously searching for answers to the intriguing questions, "Is the image a fake?" and "Who was the man depicted on the Shroud?"
One of the sciences that has tried to answer the question of authenticity is space technology. Two US Air Force scientists, Dr. John Jackson and Eric Jumper, used a VP-8 Image Analyzer, a device that plots shades of image intensity at adjustable levels of vertical relief, and came up with a three-dimensional version of the Shroud image. This is important, because an ordinary photographic image cannot usually be converted with any precision into a three-dimensional replica. Ordinary photographs of people, when transformed to vertical relief, show obvious distortions. In the case of the Shroud, the resulting three-dimensional portrait shows a body that is natural, proportioned, and lacking any apparent distortion.
They conclude that the image formation on the Shroud was uniform and independent of any body-surface qualities, and that it had been laid relatively flat upon the corpse. They also say that the image was not produced by direct contact, which would have caused discoloration of the cloth only where the Shroud touched the body. Moreover, direct contact would have caused the image to appear flat-topped, with all areas of contact having the same vertical elevation. For the same reason, they rule out the possibility of an artistic production of the Shroud image.
Two Italian scientists, Giovanni Tamburelli and Giovanni Garibotto, examined photographs of the Shroud with a Varian 620 minicomputer to reduce the distortion presented by the Shroud itself. The three-dimensional quality of the image was confirmed again, and the possibility of a manual formation of the image was definitely ruled out by some new details that appeared only after their three-dimensional elaboration.
Profs. Tamburelli and Garibotto, like Jackson and jumper, report a circular impression over the right eye. This can only be explained by the use of a coin to keep the eyelid closed. The coin probably made an imprint in the blood, which had not completely coagulated. It was later removed, probably after the body had reached its full rigidity but before the closing of the sepulcher.
Reverend Francis Filas, a theologian of Loyola University, in an interview with the Chicago SunTimes, stated that after subjecting original photographs of the Shroud to the image-analysis equipment of a Log E/ Interpretation System, there appeared markings extremely similar to the details of a coin minted between AD 29 and 32, during the administration of Pontius Pilate in Judea. In a 1979 article in the journal, Computer World (a copy of which John A. Tvedtnes kindly lent me), Reverend Filas's experiment is explained more clearly. He enlarged the eye section of the image to produce high-contrast, three-dimensional, digitized photographs, thus washing out the weaves of the cloth without destroying the pattern. These showed an astrological symbol and four letters of the Greek alphabet, which he interprets as an abbreviation of the Greek equivalent of Tiberius Caesar (loucaicaroc), which is known to have been imprinted on Pontius Pilate coins.
Another science which has helped answer the questions of authenticity and origin is palynology. Pollen grains vary, some being fuzzy, some spiny, and some grooved. No two species produce grains that are exactly alike. Therefore, many species can be identified with high accuracy by comparing their pollen grains with a standard reference collection.
A Swiss criminologist, Max Frei, was permitted to take 12 samples of the dust that had collected on the Shroud. This he did by pressing a sticky tape against the cloth. Under his microscope, he found 48 samples of pollen. Three-fourths of the species represented grow in Palestine, among which 13 are characteristic of and exclusive to the Negev and the Dead Sea area. Frei's findings indicate that the Shroud has been in Palestine at some time during the course of its history.
Modern historians have reconstructed the travels of the Shroud as follows: Jerusalem, Edessa, Constantinople, Cyprus, France, and Italy. According to Frei, palynology confirms this itinerary.
Professor Gilbert Raes of the University of Ghent in Belgium, an internationally renowned textile expert, studied two small fragments and a number of threads snipped from the Shroud in 1973. His findings point to the Holy Land and to great antiquity. He identified the linen as of a type similar to that commonly used in ancient Palestine for grave clothes.
Other investigators of the Shroud have conducted X-ray fluorescence tests to determine its chemical makeup. (Such tests can detect iron and potassium in blood and heavy metals usually found in paints.) The stains on the cloth, under X-ray and ultraviolet radiation, respond in the same manner as blood. A biophysicist, John Heller, conducted chemical and spectroscopic tests on fibrils and concluded that they were hemoglobin. He and other team members plan additional tests.
Many other tests were made, but their results have not yet been published. In November of this year an other meeting of all the investigators of the Shroud of-Turin Research Project will be held to discuss their final results, and soon afterward the International Institute of Sindonology will publish their papers.
Still more tests are planned, among which is one which will answer the crucial question of age. It will utilize a method well known among archaeologists as C11 or radiocarbon dating. This test has not heretofore been permitted, because some of the material has to be thereby destroyed, and Catholic Church authorities have feared it would require too much of the Shroud. But a new technique has been developed, which involves an accelerator used as a mass spectrometer and requires only a very small portion of the material. The University of Rochester is in the vanguard in the employment of this technique, and Dr. Gove states that it would only take about one square centimeter of cloth to determine its age within a margin of plus-or-minus 150 years.
UNANSWERED QUESTION
But even if tests further confirm that the Shroud is truly ancient, that it is not a fraud, and that the bloodstains are genuine, there is still one question that will remain outside the reach of science: "Is this the very shroud that Joseph of Arimathea placed over the body of Jesus?"
148.1 ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCES FOR THE GARDEN TOMB, JERUSALEM. By John A. Tvedtnes, instructor at the Brigham Young University-Salt Lake Center for Continuing Education, doctoral candidate in Egyptian and Semitic languages at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and trustee of the Society for Early Historic Archaeology. Paper read at the Thirtieth Annual Symposium on the Archaeology of the Scriptures, held at Brigham Young University on September 26, 1981.
SINCE THE EARLY FOURTH CENTURY AD, Christianity has revered the site of the Holy Sepulcher Church as that of Jesus' crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. Pilgrims are shown a small rocky knoll, said to be Calvary or Golgotha, while a nearby site is claimed to be the emplacement of the tomb of Christ, destroyed in the eleventh century by the Egyptian ruler al-Hakim.
DOUBTS RAISED
But there are problems with this identification. Firstly, the various stone slabs (e.g., where Christ's body is said to have been washed and anointed and where he was laid in the tomb) are actually of pink marble, which, not being native to Palestine, was undoubtedly imported from Europe. Secondly, the designation of the site can be placed in the time of Queen Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine. She presumed that the tomb of Christ would be found beneath one of the pagan Roman temples on the assumption that the Romans would have covered up the Christian holy site, just as they had covered the site of Herod's destroyed temple with a temple of their own, dedicated to Jupiter. She therefore razed the temple of Venus and excavated the area, finding a large cemetery. One of the tombs was situated within a cave, and this she denominated the "Holy Sepulcher" of Christ.
In actual fact, there were no "Christian" holy sites as far as the Romans of the second century AD were concerned. Rome was fighting Jews, who would not have held the tomb of Jesus to be sacred. The desecration of the temple was therefore not comparable to that of the tomb of Jesus. Despite the more than 16 centuries in which the Holy Sepulcher Church has been held in veneration, it has no evidence to support its claims.
During the 18th century, some pilgrims to Jerusalem began to cast doubts on the authenticity of the site designated by St. Helena.1 Their reasons, however, were unwarranted. The objection to the church was that it lay within the walls of the city, while the Bible is clear that Christ was crucified and buried outside the wall (befitting Jewish religious law).
Such reasoning has been refuted by the discovery of the western wall of the city of Jesus' day, located beneath the Russian Orthodox Saint Alexander's Chapel, just cast of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.2 These "Russian Excavations" show remnants of the wall running north and south, then turning eastward and forming a corner gate through which, some Christians now believe, Christ exited en route to the site of the crucifixion. Since the Holy Sepulcher Church is located just west of this wall (with evidence in the excavations that Constantine used the wall itself to form the eastern end of the first church), it clearly was outside the city walls in Jesus' day.
A suitable alternative site was occasionally sought, but without much success. In 1881, British Col. Claude R. Conder thought to identify a recently excavated tomb (now situated on the west side of Nablus Road, beside the new bus station) with that of Christ. Indeed, a comparison with Herodian-period tombs excavated in Jericho in the last few years has provided evidence that the tomb does, indeed, date to the correct time period, though no one today believes it to be that of Christ.3
In 1867, another tomb had been excavated nearby, to the east, at the base of a low cliff. The Greek proprietor of the site had intended to use the rock-hewn tomb as a cistern for water storage. But, upon being told by friends that archaeologists would be interested in seeing it intact, he reburied it, then later exposed it to view again.4
PLACE OF THE SKULL
Meanwhile, the hill to the east of this tomb attracted the attention of a number of European scholars visiting or living in the Holy Land, such as Otto Thenius (1842 or 1849), Col. Churchill (c.1870) and Fisher Howe (1871). To them, it appeared that this could be a logical place for the Golgotha of the Bible.5
In 1883 British general Charles ("Chinese") Gordon was visiting in Jerusalem and staying at the American Colony, just inside the northern city wall and immediately east of Damascus Gate. Contemplating the scenery on the outside of the wall, he noted the prominent rocky outcropping just a few hundred feet away which, to his mind, could have been the biblical Golgotha.6 Though the Bible does not say that Christ was crucified on a hill (Golgotha is called "the place of a skull" in John 19:17), the idea was, nevertheless, firmly rooted in Christian tradition because of the small rocky knoll in the Holy Sepulcher Church.
Gordon noted that the face of the cliff opposite the city wall resembled a skull (the meaning of the name Golgotha), with depressions for the eyes, nose, and mouth, and that there was a tomb nearby in the cliff to the west. He became excited about the prospects of having the site preserved for pilgrims to visit. A campaign was mounted to collect funds in England and to organize the Garden Tomb Society, which ultimately purchased the plot of land to the west of the skull-faced cliff. In the years to follow, a fair amount of archaeological and traditionary evidence was discovered which supported the thesis that this was, indeed, where Christ had been laid to rest.
The account in John 19:41-42 provided the principal biblical information about the site: "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 tomb, of course, had belonged to Joseph of Arimathea. In the years to come, evidence was uncovered that the Garden Tomb was, indeed, a Jewish tomb of the first century which had never been completed, that it was located in the midst of a garden and near the place of execution, thus conforming to the biblical description. Yet, despite the vast amount of interest in the site and the number of books and pamphlets published over the years, no one source has given the totality of archaeological evidence. Nor, indeed, have all of them together considered everything that could be said. It is therefore my hope to present here a more comprehensive view of the evidences favoring the Garden Tomb as the site of Christ's burial and resurrection.
GARDEN TOMB
The first thing to note is that the small hill known as "Gordon's Calvary" is the northernmost part of the mount called Moriah in the Bible. It was to this mount that Abraham brought Isaac to sacrifice him (Gen. 22), symbolic of the sacrifice of Christ to come. The site was later purchased by David and used by Solomon to construct his temple. The temple itself was located about midpoint on the north-south line of the hill. Significantly, sacrificial animals, whose deaths symbolized that of Christ, were slain to the north of the temple altar (Lev. 1:11). If Jesus was crucified at "Gordon's Calvary," then he died on the northernmost part of the hill where that altar was situated.
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Golgotha (as we shall henceforth call "Gordon's Calvary") is separated from the main body of Mount Moriah by a chasm created by an ancient rock quarry. Because the skull face is on the cliff which was cut away by the quarry, it is important to know when the quarry was in operation. If, for example, it postdated Christ, then the skull shape could not have been present in his time, and there would be no reason to believe that it lent the name Golgotha to the site. There are, however, some indications that the quarry predates Christ.
Fig3. THE GARDEN TOMB, JERUSALEM. Ruth R. Christensen ponders the site proposed as the place of burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Photograph by the editor.
The first bits of evidence are traditionary. The southern cliff of the quarry runs just underneath the northern wall of the Old City of Jerusalem. Cut into this cliff is a large cave (partly natural) which was enlarged by quarrying operations. It has long been called "Solomon's Quarries," based on the tradition that this is where Solomon obtained stone for building his temple. It has also been termed "Zedekiah's Cave," from a tradition that King Zedekiah hid here from Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in 587 BC. If either of these stories is true, then the quarry and the resultant skull-shaped cliff predate Christ. French scholar Charles Clermont-Ganneau discovered, in the first of the quarrying chambers inside the cave, a drawing of a winged sphinx in Assyrian style (now in the Louvre in Paris). This would date it to the Israelite period and would imply that the quarry dates back at least to 600 BC .7
The northeast portion of the quarry, along the cliff just east of the skull face, opens into a large rock-hewn cavern called "Jeremiah's Grotto." Tradition associates this with the place where Jeremiah was imprisoned by King Zedekiah and where he is said to have written the book of Lamentations (Jer. 38:6). Interestingly, Jer. 2:13 speaks of "broken cisterns, that can hold no water." There is just such a cistern on the same cliff, to the west of the skull face. The quarrying operation cut the cistern in two, leaving a large gaping hole in the cliff, which has another hole running to the top of the hill through bedrock, where ropes were once let down to draw out water. Cisterns of this type first came into use in the days of King David, lime slaking being the means of preventing leakage of water through cracks in the limestone. It is possible that it was destroyed a generation later by Solomon's work.8
The major piece of evidence that would place the cutting of the quarry prior to Jesus' time is the discovery of a number of rock-cut tombs of the Israelite period on the quarry cliff to the west of the skull face on the property of St. Stephen's Convent, very close to the Garden Tomb itself.9 This would indicate, once again, that the quarrying operations took place before that time, both on the basis of the placement of the tombs and on the fact that graveyards are generally considered to be sacred places, not to be disturbed by quarrying.10
If, as this evidence suggests, the quarry cliffs stood in the days of Herod the Great, then it is inconceivable that Herod would not have made use of their defensive posture to build his northern city wall atop them. Indeed, there are some Herodian stones between the cliff and the so-called "Herod's Gate" to the east, and parts of the cliff bedrock appear to have been sculpted to look like Herodian stones with their drafted edges.
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Fig.4 GARDEN TOMB AND VACINITY. Insert, upper left, shows the area in relation to the northern wall of the Old City of Jerusalem.
Moreover, immediately to the west of the southern cliff, where Mt. Moriah drops off to form the Tyropoean Valley (now filled) of Josephus' account, we have Damascus Gate, where Dame Kathleen Kenyon excavated in the early 1960s. Herodian stonework is found here, along with remnants of a Herothan gateway and towers.11 This, of course, provides evidence that Golgotha was-as the Bible states-not far outside the city walls and near the gate (John 19:20; Matt. 27:39; 28:11; Hebrews 13:12). It was also situated beside the main northern road-an ideal place for a public execution because of the numerous passers-by (who, in the New Testament story, mocked Christ as he hung on the cross).
Major Conder noted a Jewish tradition told to him in 1874-75 that the hill was formerly a place of execution. 12 Christians in Jerusalem are also said to have had the tradition that this was where both Jeremiah and Stephen were stoned.13 The cliff fits well with the Jewish method of stoning from Christ's time, described in the Mishnah (Sanh. 6, 1-4), wherein the condemned prisoner was first thrown from a cliff (with a minimum height of 12 feet). If he survived the fall, then the witnesses were to pick up a large stone and hurl it upon his chest. If he still did not die, then the crowd would stone him.
It seems quite likely that in Christ's day there was but one place of execution in the Jerusalem area. Since an execution site would have been considered polluted, it would not have been in keeping with Jewish custom to stone or otherwise execute people just anywhere. In this connection, we must note the execution of Stephen in Acts 7. Beginning as early as the fifth century AD,14 and until at least Crusader times, Damascus Gate was called "St. Stephen's Gate."
St. Stephen's Church of the fifth century AD (today rebuilt with the same name and housing the French Ecole Biblique) is situated adjacent to Golgotha, on top of the cliff immediately to the north of the Garden Tomb itself. The church's discovery in 1882 15 provided further evidence in support of the early tradition placing Stephen's execution here. It is likely that Christ was executed in the same place.
Excavations in the area of the Garden Tomb have revealed evidence that it was, indeed, an ancient garden-not of flowers, but of fruits. A winepress, discovered in 1924, can be seen at the site today, along with three cisterns, one of which has a capacity of 200,000 gallons of water. Plaster around the exterior of the tomb and in the vicinity of the large cistern has been determined to be of the Roman period, though the plaster of the cistern itself was later repaired in Byzantine times and decorated with a cross-itself evidence of early Christian veneration.
DESCRIPTION OF TOMB
The Garden Tomb fits the qualifications for that of a rich Jew of the first century AD. Several noted archaeologists have examined it and declared it to be Jewish and of the Herodian period.16 Like other Jewish tombs of Jerusalem from the same period (e.g., in the Kidron and Hinnom valleys, at Sanhedria, etc.), it is oriented toward the Temple Mount. It also resembles them in form, in that there is an outer "weeping chamber" for visitors, plus an inner chamber with burial niches for the dead. The type of chiseling on the face of the cliff outside the tomb, and inside as well, is the same as that found in such Jerusalem burials as the "Sanhedrin Tombs," the tombs of the Kidron and Hinnom valleys, the so-called "Tomb of the Kings," and the "family tomb of Herod--all Jewish and all dating between the second century BC and the first century AD.
Cut into solid bedrock, the Garden Tomb conforms to the biblical description of "a sepulcher that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid" (Luke 23:53). It has a nephesh (lit. "soul") or windowlike cut in the upper right-hand face, through which, according to Jewish tradition, the spirit of the deceased departed after the third day in the tomb.
One enters the tomb via the weeping chamber on the left, whence it is possible to descend slightly into the burial chamber. Here are found three burial niches, only one of which was completed by the workmen, thus indicating that it would have been a "new" tomb when Jesus was buried there, as the Bible states. The only niche which can be seen from the door is the one in the northeast corner. It would therefore fit the requirements for the burial spot of Jesus, for both Mary Magdalene and John were able to see the spot from outside the tomb, looking through the door. The women coming to the tomb on Easter morning were able to look inside and see angels seated where Jesus' body had lain.
When one examines the burial niche closely, it becomes apparent that it was enlarged in the area of the head to the east, by further chiseling into the bedrock. This is probably because the person buried there was taller than the one for whom it was constructed. This evidence of a "borrowed tomb" fits the character of that of Joseph of Arimathea, in which Jesus was buried.
In front of the tomb, there is a trough which could have served to guide a rolling stone in front of the door. (See Mark 16:3-4; Matt. 28:2.) Such rolling stones for tomb entrances are known from other Jewish tombs of the time of Jesus in the Jerusalem area. One can see examples today at (1) the so-called "Herod's Family Tomb," adjacent to the King David Hotel, (2) the so-called "Tomb of the Kings" (actually built by Queen Helena of Adiabene in the late first century BC, after her conversion to Judaism), across from St. George's Cathedral, and (3) a tomb in the church at Bethphage, on the Mount of Olives en route to Bethany.
It has been argued that the chisel marks in the trough at the Garden Tomb appear to be Crusader in origin, indicating that it was perhaps used for feeding animals but not for guiding a rolling stone into place in front of the tomb entrance.17 Nevertheless, it is interesting that it has the same width as the rollingstone trough at the "Tomb of the Kings." Moreover, because the low wall forming the front part of the trough is some six to eight inches higher than the bedrock forming a court in front of the tomb, if the trough were an afterthought, then it would have had to be formed by lowering the entire rocky courtyard by chiseling, which is not the case. If the chiseling is of the Crusader period, then it is more likely to have resulted from efforts to deepen the channel, rather than create it.
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Fig5. The tomb
Visitors to the Garden Tomb are often surprised at the height of the doorway leading into the tomb. Such an opening would require a very large rolling stone to block it-larger than any of those known from other tombs of the period.18 But an examination of the chiseling on the left-hand side of the doorway (the only side which is complete) reveals that its original height was considerably less-i.e. approximately one third of the present doorway. The top portion of the doorway has evidence of very rough chiseling, done when more stone was later removed to heighten it. The width is the same as the original, however, as is evidenced by the fact that its side is still partially marked on the lower right.
The height of the doorway is important for understanding the biblical story, in which both John and Mary Magdalene had to stoop down to look inside the tomb (John 20:5, 11). Each was able to see the spot where Jesus was buried from this position, which again points to the burial niche in the northeast corner. It was probably because of the light entering through the nephesh that they were able to discern the interior of what would otherwise have been a dark tomb.
The reason for the missing door and front wall of the Garden Tomb (the latter now filled in with masonry) can probably be traced to the construction of a Byzantine church on the site. Evidence for that church takes the form of mosaic decorations found at the site (remnants of flooring), as well as the arching and holes for ceiling-beams found above the tomb entrance.
Long grooves in the bedrock floor in front of the tomb may have supported a low screen, typical of Byzantine churches. The screen would have separated the congregational area from the area where the priest officiated, with the tomb proper (its front wall having been knocked out) serving as a shrine in the tripartite setup.
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Fig 6
It has recently been suggested that the grooves were a single water channel used to drain a baptismal font in "heart" shape which stood in front of the tomb. This seems unlikely to me, for the grooves are not now connected in the middle. Also there is no evidence that the low depression in the bedrock to the right of the grooves was the base of a baptistery.
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The rectangular depression in the bedrock floor to the left of the tomb entrance is possibly for a reliquary-a box containing bones or other relics of some early saint. These were common in Byzantine churches.
Fig7
Byzantine crosses adorn the interior of the tomb and two of the most elaborate of these, having been painted on the wall, have faded since the tomb's discovery. Others-both painted and carved-remain, as does a large embossed plaster cross in the larger cistern.
Another cross is carved on the outside wall of the tomb, to the left and just above the height of the doorway. Close examination shows that it was originally an anchor which was later extended and changed into a cross. The anchor, along with the fish, was a very early Christian symbol and may indicate a first-century veneration of the tomb site.
MOST SUITABLE CANDIDATE
On the plateau above the low cliff into which the tomb is carved sits St. Stephen's Church amidst ruins of earlier structures. A cemetery of the Byzantine period, located almost immediately above the Garden Tomb itself, is included among the archaeological finds of the site. Two of the inscriptions lend evidence to the authenticity of the tomb as being that of Christ. One reads "Buried near his Lord"-possibly referring to the proximity of Jesus' tomb. The other reads "Onesimus, Deacon of the Church of the Witnesses of the Resurrection." What better place for a church dedicated to the witnesses of the resurrection than the place where that marvelous event occurred? In this inscription, we possibly have the name of the Byzantine church which once stood before the tomb entrance.
As circumstantial as some of the evidence may be, one thing is certain about the Garden Tomb. It fits all the qualifications for the tomb in which Jesus was buried, from both the archaeological and the scriptural points of view. It is by far the most suitable candidate for the authentic tomb of Jesus Christ.
NOTES
1. William Steuart McBirnie, Search for the Authentic Tomb of Jesus (Montrose, California; Acclaimed Books, 1975), p. 110. There were early maps of Jerusalem which depicted the crucifixion taking place to the north of the city, outside the Damascus Gate, e.g., Christianus Adrichon (1584), Bruin and Hogenberg (1572), and Thomas Fuller (1650). See Jerusalem: The Garden Tomb, Golgotha and the Garden of the Resurrection (London: The Garden Tomb Association, 1955; hereinafter JGT), pp. 36-37.
2. See Barauth C. Schick in Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement (hereinafter PEFQS), April, 1893. The wall continues north from the area of the Russian Excavations and remnants can be found in various shops leading up to the Damascus Gate. The wall is in line with other Herodian construction seen both inside and outside the Damascus Gate Area.
3. Sir Charles Wilson mistakenly identified the tomb as Israelite or pre-Israelite (i.e., Canaanite). See JGT, p. 20.
4. Schick in PEFQS, April, 1892.
5. See PEFQS, April, 1890.
6. See Gordon's article in PEFQS, April, 1885.
7. See the brochure by Isaac Sachs, "Solomon's Quarries," published by the Jerusalem municipality (n.d.), p. 13.
8. If it were to become possible to examine the plaster inside the cistern, perhaps one could ascertain its date. Unfortunately, the property is part of a Muslim cemetery.
9. Schick, in PEFQS, July, 1886, p. 155, describes these tombs. A few years ago, an archaeologist associated with the Albright Institute in Jerusalem (and also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Garden Tomb Association) told me of an Iron Age tomb excavated about 1922 along the cliff face under the north wall of the Old City, which would conclusively prove that the quarry was cut prior to its time. However, I have as yet been unable to obtain any information on this excavation.
10. The prohibition against desecration of tombs has, of course, sometimes been ignored in the case of invaders. For example, the Babylonians desecrated Jewish tombs, as is known from both Jeremiah and from archaeological evidence.
11. There is still much debate about whether the Herodian work in the Damascus Gate area dates to the time of Herod the Great or to that of Herod Agrippa 11. Kenyon believes the gate to be late, while a large number of other scholars date it before Christ, pointing to the existence of Agrippa's wall farther north (the "Third Wall" mentioned by Josephus). Though the question is an important one, we do not have room to discuss it here.
12. Conder in PEFQS, April, 1890, pp. 69-70.
13. See Rev. J. C. Hanauer in PEFQS, July, 1892, p. 199. See also id. in ibid., October, 1902, p. 307.
14. Luciana, a Christian pilgrim, writing in AD 415, notes that the northern gate of Jerusalem was called the "Gate of St. Stephen."
15. JGT, p. 19. Note that the "St. Stephen's Gate" and "Church of St. Stephen" to the east of the Old City did not receive their names and identification with Stephen until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
16. This includes Dame Kathleen Kenyon, Sir Charles Marston, Sir Flinders Petrie, and others. See the London Daily Telegraph Magazine of March 27, 1970.
17. JGT, p. 18.
18. It is claimed by some-and perhaps rightly so-that there are sockets chiseled into the rock at the entrance which would have held the hinges for a wooden door. These, however, could easily have been added after the doorway was heightened. Moreover, since stone doors are known to us from Jewish tombs of the second through the fifth centuries AD, there is no reason to assume that the door was wooden. Today, the Garden Tomb Association has on display in Jerusalem examples of both stone doors and rolling stones found at other tombs in the city.
For further information, see the brochure, Jerusalem: The Garden Tomb, "Skull Hill" and the Garden of the Resurrection (copyright by Palphot, Jerusalem, and printed in the late 1970s for the Garden Tomb Association). For an excellent map showing archaeological remains in Jerusalem, contact the American Institute of Holy Land Studies on Mount Zion in Jerusalem.
148.2 DR. RICKS IS APPOINTED 1982 SYMPOSIUM CHAIRMAN. Welby W. Ricks has been appointed chairman of the 1982 Annual Symposium on the Archaeology of the Scriptures. Announcement was made last month by Esther Phelps Parks, SEHA vice-president.
(Since 1980 the Society vice-president, as one of the duties of his or her office, names the symposium chairman every year.)
Dr. Ricks is in the process of forming a Symposium Committee. No date has been set, but the yearly meeting is usually held on a Saturday in October.
The new chairman has invited all Society members to participate. Those who would like to submit papers should begin preparations without delay. Full instructions will follow soon.
In past years, Dr. Ricks has served a number of times as a member of the Symposium Committee and four times (1960, 1963, 1966, and 1968) as the chairman himself. A member of the Society since 1952, he has also served since 1955 as a member of the Executive Committee (now Board of Trustees) and has filled two terms, 1962-65 and 1968-72, as Society president (UAS Newsl., 31.22; Newsl. and Proc., 121.0).
148.3 PRESIDENT PETERSON INVITES HELP FROM MEMBERS. Do you know of anyone-either a Society member or not-who would like to make a tax-exempt gift in support of the SEHA? Virgil V. Peterson, Society president, has invited readers of the Newsletter and Proceedings to send him the names and addresses of persons they feel might be contacted with this in mind.
At the Society's Thirtieth Annual Symposium on the Archaeology of the Scriptures, held on September 26, 1981, President Peterson announced recently completed arrangements whereby tax-exempt contributions, restricted at the donor's request to the use of the SEHA, may be made to Brigham Young University. (See the December issue of the Newsletter and Proceedings, 147.3.)
President Peterson and Dr. Clark S. Knowlton, Society trustee, are busy making contacts. President Peterson says, "The results have been good to date, but we feel we could increase our effectiveness if we had a larger number of names to work with. Members may confer a great benefit upon the Society by letting us know the names of additional persons they think we should contact. We believe there are many people who would like to take advantage of this opportunity to support the work of the Society with tax relief for themselves."
Any name contacted for promotional purposes must first be cleared through the BYU Development Office. Therefore, anyone who can suggest additional names should send them to President Peterson so he can initiate the process. His address is 123 Second Ave., #802, Salt Lake City, Utah 84123 (tel. 801-3591248). Of, if preferred, the SEHA office, P.O. Box 7488, University Station, Provo, Utah 84602 (tel. 801378-2002), may be contacted.
148.4 APPOINTED CURATOR. Giovanni Tata, contributor on the staff of the Newsletter and Proceedings, was appointed curator of the Utah Pioneer Trail State Park early in February. His duties include supervision of the trail through which the original pioneers entered Salt Lake Valley, the This Is the Place monument, and Old Deseret Village. The Village is a simulated pioneer settlement, reconstructed as an outdoor "living history" museum.
Mr. Tata, a native of Taranto, Italy, holds the Master of Arts degree in archaeology from Brigham Young University. He has also completed course work for a doctorate in classical and Egyptian archaeology at the University of Turin, Italy, and for a second doctorate-in anthropology-at the University of Utah.
Mr. Tata's MA thesis at BYU, 1980, was a catalog of a large collection of ancient Peruvian textiles in the Museum of Peoples and Cultures. During the past year he has expanded that catalog to include several hundred more specimens and is now a Research Associate of the Museum.
In September, 1981, Mr. Tata read a paper at the Society's Annual Symposium entitled "The Shroud of Turin." This paper is published in full in the present issue of the Newsletter and Proceedings (see above, 148.0). It reports research carried out while the author was a graduate student in archaeology at the University of Turin.
148.5 EXCAVATION PLANNED AT PALMYRA, N.Y. A Brigham Young University archaeologist will excavate an important site in Latter-day Saint history at Palmyra, New York, this coming summer.
Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of the Mormon faith reported witnessing a series of three visits from Moroni, ancient American prophet, chronicler, and military leader, at the Smith family home in western New York State, during the night of September 21, 1823. At that time, Moroni revealed to him the location of the inscribed metal plates from which the Book of Mormon was later translated.
Dale L. Berge, BYU professor of anthropology and technical director of the Museum of Peoples and Cultures, and LaMar C. Berrett, BYU professor of church history and doctrine, are collaborating on a project aimed at identifying the exact location of the old home. They have already amassed considerable evidence, both from early records and from artifacts found on the surface.
Dr. Berge will direct a month-long excavation at the Smith home, beginning early in July. He would appreciate help from interested persons. Not only are additional funds needed, but also additional hands for the actual digging, with participants paying their own expenses. In some cases academic credit in support of a university degree can be arranged.
Interested persons may contact Dr. Berge at 930 SWKT, BYU, Provo, Utah 84602. Or he may be reached by telephone at 801-378-6110.
Dr. Berrett, a Life Member of the SEHA, read a paper on the cave at Khirbet Beit Lei, Israel, at the 1978 Annual Symposium on the Archaeology of the Scriptures. Dr. Berge, in 1963 the president of the Society's Campus Chapter, has read papers on church history subjects at the Annual Symposium in 1969, 1978, and 1980. In 1969, he excavated the Peter Whitmer home, Fayette, New York, where The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized in 1830. This made it possible for the church to hold portions of its sesquicentennial general conference at the reconstructed Whitmer home in 1980. (UAS Newsl., 86.4; Newsl. and Proc.. 143.2, 144.5, 145.0,146.5)
148.6 EDITOR PLANS COMING ISSUES. Tentative plans for the next several issues of the Newsletter and Proceedings have been made.
IZAPA STELA 5 STILL CORROBORATES THE TREE-OF-LIFE EPISODE OF 1 NEPHI 8, by Michael T. Griffith, is planned for the near future. M. Wells Jakeman's interpretation of an ancient sculpture of southern Mexico as a portrayal of an actual incident reported in the Book of Mormon has frequently been assailed. A new analysis of the evidence argues in favor of his original views as published by the SEHA.
SOCIETY SENDS EXPEDITION TO BOOK-OF-MORMON LANDS, by David A. Palmer, is also planned for early publication. It is a site-by-site and museum-by-museum report of a photographic exploration in Mexico and Guatemala made by the SEHA in 1977. The expedition took to the field in order to study at close range certain views of Book of Mormon geography. Dr. Palmer cosponsored and directed the project; Bruce W. Warren served as archaeologist.
Benjamin Urrutia's paper, SHIBLON, CORIANTUMR, AND THE JADE JAGUARS, read at the Society's 1977 Annual Symposium, may be next. Analysis of certain Nephite personal names helps in understanding the meaning of a familiar artifact type of ancient Mesoamerica.
Next on the list comes NEW CLIMATE FOR BOOK OF MORMON ARCHAEOLOGY. Discoveries of the past 50 years have gradually brought about an intellectual climate that is more friendly to Book of Mormon interpretations. The editor of the Newsletter and Proceedings has addressed this subject several times in recent years at the annual Education Week of Brigham Young University.
GREAT "FIRSTS" AT THE ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM ON THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE SCRIPTURES is next. In addition to citing "breakthroughs" first reported at the Society's 30 yearly meetings held to date, the paper will include subject and author indexes, organized in such a manner as to assist anyone undertaking research on a particular subject.
Papers read at the 1981 Annual Symposium are also under consideration: HOW THE "PLAIN AND PRECIOUS PARTS" OF I NEPHI 13:28-29 BECAME LOST, by William James Adams, Jr.; THE HAND AS A CUP IN ANCIENT TEMPLE WORSHIP, by Lynn M. Hilton; and MEET ANTONIO LEBOLO AND MICHAEL H. CHANDLER, by H. Donl Peterson.
The above list is only tentative. Changes will be made as needed.
(SEHA members may sponsor any of the above issues by paying the printing cost-with tax relief and their name printed on the front page if they wish. See December issue, 147.9.)