Jerusalem - Garden Tomb

In Nablus (Shekhem) Road in Jerusalem is an alley which leads to the Garden Tomb. Here, in a garden-like area in front of a low rocky hill which has been hewn into a vertical rock face, is a tomb which is entered through a doorway cut in the rock. This leads into a rectangular antechamber, to the right of which is the tomb chamber, with one burial place on the left and another, unfinished, on the right, under a small window. The tomb dates from the Roman or Byzantine period.

The tomb was found by General Gordon in 1882 and identified by him as Christ's tomb, since it lay outside the city wall in accordance with the requirements of Jewish law. He also saw in the shape of the rocky hill the likeness of a skull (in the New Testament