The results of the autopsy and examination of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem have been published (video). Exploration of the tomb of Jesus Christ: continuation of Archaeological excavations of the Holy Sepulcher

It seems that there is one less mystery in the world, and it’s time for archaeologists and theologians to shake hands - after the opening of the tomb of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem, there is no doubt about its authenticity!

Just over a month ago, representatives of six Christian churches allowed specialists from National Geographic to lift for the first time in many centuries the marble slab that covered the main shrine of Christians around the world. The goal of archaeologists is to confirm or refute the fact that the supposed tomb of Christ today can be considered the real burial place of Jesus of Nazareth, or whether the tomb and its contents are irretrievably lost to history and believers, after numerous earthquakes and destruction of the church by conquerors.

And journalists from The Independent report amazing news from the field:

“After researchers lifted a marble slab for the first time in 500 years, they discovered another limestone slab, on which, in all likelihood, lay the body of Jesus Christ! But that’s not all... Then archaeologists discovered a find about which nothing was known to date - a second gray marble slab with a cross engraved by the Crusaders in the 12th century...”

According to the four Gospels, Jesus was buried in a cave near the site of his crucifixion on Mount Golgotha, which belonged to Joseph of Arimathea. It is known that according to Jewish tradition, the dead could not be buried within the city, so limestone is a characteristic sign that the burial was outside Jerusalem, surrounded by the rocks of this rock. In addition, on Golgotha, not far from the current location of the Temple, a quarry was discovered, the stones of which were used to construct a funeral bed.

“The most surprising thing for us was the discovery of the second marble slab, after we removed the first layer of dust,” says archaeologist Fredrik Hiebert, “it was gray with a cross in the middle, and not like the creamy white marble that had been used to seal the tomb since 1500- 's, in order to prevent the theft of the relic..."

“...When we realized what we had found, our knees began to shake! This seems to us to be visible proof that the place that pilgrims worship today is the same grave that St. Helena, the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, who made Christianity the dominant religion, found back in IV!”

Christians believe that three days after the crucifixion, Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead. And Fredrik Hiebert witnessed how, after the opening of the tomb, Christian leaders were the first to visit the main shrine:

“They came out with a big smile on their face! After them the monks came in and everyone came out smiling. We became very curious. We also entered the tomb and saw a lot of rubble, but no artifacts or bones!”

His body was placed in one of the burial caves carved into the mountain. There, on the third day, his resurrection took place. And in the 4th century, during excavations, the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine I, Helen Equal to the Apostles, allegedly came across a cross, after which she founded the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on this site.

Now the Holy Sepulcher is considered one of the most significant Christian shrines. It is part of the complex of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher along with Golgotha, the Church of the Resurrection of Christ, the underground Church of the Finding of the Life-Giving Cross, several churches and monasteries. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher itself is divided among six denominations of the Christian Church,

each of which has its own chapels and hours for prayer.

To this day, all that remains of the entire bed of Christ is the bed itself, fragments of the walls of the cave and the entrance. This is due to pilgrims who are eager to get a piece of the ancient relic by any means necessary. To avoid such barbaric acts, in 1555 the box was covered with a marble slab.

And now, more than 500 years later, scientists removed the slab from the burial site to find out what the tomb originally looked like.

Professor Antonia Moropoulou, who is leading the restoration of the Edicule, a small domed chapel built over the Tomb, says: “The techniques we use to document this unique moment will allow the whole world to experience our discoveries as if they were in the tomb of Christ themselves.”

During the opening of the tomb, which began a few hours after the church closed, a crowd of pilgrims and tourists was present. Conservatives, Copts, Franciscans, and Orthodox Greek priests crowded at the entrance to the Edicule. The tomb itself, usually illuminated by wax candles, was bathed in bright electric light. When the cream marble slab was pulled away, the researchers discovered a grey-beige stone surface underneath.

Maropoulou can't say what it is yet. It points to the need for instrumental research.

Archaeologist Frederic Hébert, one of the research team members, says: “It will be a long scientific analysis, but in the end we will see the surface on which Christ lay, according to Scripture.”

The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem in 2015, with the consent of two large communities, invited researchers from the Polytechnic University of Athens to study the Edicule. Previously, employees of the same university were involved in the restoration of the Acropolis of Athens and Hagia Sophia.

The communities of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher agreed to the restoration in March 2016, provided that

that the work will be completed by Easter 2017. The cost of the project was $4 million.

Added to this was a royal donation from and another $1.3 million from Mika Ertegun, the widow of the founder of Atlantic Records.

According to the four Gospels, Jesus Christ was buried in a cave on Mount Golgotha, not far from the place of his crucifixion. Christians believe that three days later Jesus rose from the dead and ascended. Scientists, of course, cannot verify this information. However, there is no direct evidence that the man known as Jesus of Nazareth was crucified by the Roman administration of Judea and buried after the crucifixion, so historians accept that the Holy Sepulcher could be the real burial place of Jesus.

The long history of the Holy Sepulcher and the complex structure of the Temple, erected in different centuries by Christian rulers, we already told. Let us repeat briefly: it all started with Saint Helena, who in the 4th century came to Golgotha ​​and discovered a cave with a funeral bed (according to some sources, a temple already stood on this site, founded by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century). In 1555 (and possibly earlier), the bed was covered with a marble slab - it is believed to protect it from souvenir lovers. Since then, no one has lifted the slab, and by the 21st century, historians have a great desire to find out what is inside.

The main question that archaeologists asked themselves was: why did Saint Helena decide that she had found the burial place of Jesus of Nazareth? Scientists were allocated 60 hours for excavations, and this is what they managed to find out.

Under the marble slab there was a filler - a layer of stone material. Underneath it was another slab of marble with a cross carved into the stone, and below it was a slab of limestone, which is considered the burial bed.

The first conclusion: during seven centuries of worship, no one moved the shrine; The stone bed found by Saint Helena remained in its original place. Indirect evidence was also discovered that the cave was used for burial according to Jewish rites at the beginning of the first century AD.

According to the Gospels, the body of Christ was placed in a cave on Calvary that belonged to Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy disciple of Jesus. Jewish tradition forbade burying the dead within the city, so the limestone cliffs around Jerusalem are home to many cave burials. At Golgotha, not far from the Temple, a quarry and stones were discovered that were used to build a burial bed for the deceased. The furnishings of the cave located inside the temple and the design of the tomb's contents correspond to the burial traditions of the early first century, scientists conclude.

Archaeologists have no evidence that Jesus of Nazareth was buried in the cave where the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is now located, but there are no other places that are equally suitable for what is described in the New Testament, archaeologists conclude. Science still can neither confirm nor refute the assumption that the slab, revered by Christians all over the world, served as the burial place of the one whom Christians consider a prophet and messiah.

Archaeologists who examined the shrine of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem after the marble slab covering it was removed for the first time in 450 years found that the burial Bed of Christ remained intact. National Geographic magazine reported this on Monday.

The slab from the Holy Sepulcher in Old Jerusalem was removed on October 26 (for the first time in 450 years). Specialists from the National Technical University of Athens, with the support of Israeli and Armenian archaeologists, carried out research work in Edicule over the next 60 hours.

The Holy Sepulcher is a tomb carved into natural rock from the Second Temple period, which contains a stone burial bed (200 by 80 cm, height from the floor 60 cm). The current room, like the previous cave destroyed in 1009, is called the Holy Sepulchre. This room, located in the Edicule, symbolizes the cave in which the Body of Christ was buried. Only the bed itself, part of the cave walls and part of the entrance have survived to this day. By the middle of the 16th century, the bed was badly damaged by pilgrims who tried to break off a piece of the relic. To prevent these attempts, it was covered with a slab of white marble in 1555.

When scientists removed the marble lining and a layer of stone fragments from the coffin, they saw underneath another marble slab with a cross carved on its surface. Historians suggest that it was made during the Crusades.

The burial bed itself turned out to be completely intact, despite the fact that the walls of the cave in which it was located were destroyed along with the original building of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the 11th century.

Archaeologists then brought the slab to the surface to clean and digitize it before reinstalling it. “It's absolutely amazing. My knees are shaking because I did not expect this... We cannot say with one hundred percent certainty, but at first glance, there is clear evidence that the tomb has not been damaged during all this time. After all, scientists and historians have been asking this question for many decades,” said archaeologist Fredrik Hiebert in an interview with the magazine.

In addition, archaeologists confirmed the presence of limestone in the walls of the cave inside Edicule, and also made a small window so that believers could see the shrine for the first time in several centuries.

In the Gospels, we recall, it is reported that Jesus was buried outside of Jerusalem, not far from the site of his crucifixion on Golgotha. A few years after the burial, the borders of Jerusalem were significantly expanded so that Golgotha ​​and the nearby tomb were within the city.

In the 4th century, Saint Helen, Equal to the Apostles, ordered excavations to begin at Golgotha. As a result, the cross on which Jesus was crucified was found. The queen ordered the foundation of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on this site.

The discovery made by scientists in the tomb of Jesus Christ resolved a centuries-old dispute between historians.

As I wrote last week, archaeologists from the funeral Bed of Christ in the Edicule - the chapel over the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem's Church of the Resurrection of Christ (Church of the Holy Sepulcher), installed in the 16th century and has not been raised since then. The slab over the Lodge was erected due to the fact that in those days pilgrims tried to break off part of the relic for themselves. After removing the slab, scientists discovered a lot of stone fragments underneath it.

According to TASS, after analyzing the stones, scientists intkbbach They found another slab with a carved cross above them, which was presumably installed during the Crusades. At the final stage of the work, archaeologists discovered a burial bed carved into limestone. It turned out that it was preserved intact, despite the fact that the walls of the cave in which it was located were destroyed along with the original building of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher at the beginning of the 11th century by order of Caliph Hakim.

As archaeologists have established, the stone on which, according to Holy Scripture, the body of Christ rested, has remained intact since its installation.

“We cannot say with 100% certainty, but there is visible evidence that the tomb has not been moved [since the burial of Christ]. This is something that scientists and historians have debated for centuries,” said archaeologist Fredrik Gibert. His words are quoted by RBC with reference to National Geographic magazine.

Experts studied the ancient monument for 60 hours until then, and on the evening of October 28, the slab was again installed in its original place.

Scientists were able to conduct a thorough inspection and filming of the monument, and their findings were documented for further study. According to the Russian Spiritual Mission in Jerusalem, the restoration of the Edicule is being carried out by specialists from the National Technical University of Athens in coordination with employees of the University of Florence and experts from Armenia.

It is known that the burial place of Jesus Christ was discovered three centuries after the Crucifixion by envoys of the Roman Emperor Constantine, who proclaimed Christianity the state religion. The cave in which the Holy Sepulcher was located was found under the foundation of a pagan temple, built on the orders of Emperor Hadrian, who ordered the creation of a new colony on the site of Jerusalem, destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.

"We cannot say with absolute certainty that the place where the Church of the Holy Sepulcher stands is the burial place of Jesus, but we certainly have no other place that would correspond as accurately to it, and we have no reason to reject the authenticity of this place "National Geographic quotes Israeli Jerusalem archeology expert Dan Bahat as saying.

Last week, a video from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher appeared on the Internet. The footage shows archaeologists removing a marble slab from the place where, according to legend, Jesus Christ was buried.

Opening of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. VIDEO

According to the Gospel, after the death of Christ, His body was placed in one of the burial caves carved into the mountain. According to scripture, it was there that the resurrection of Jesus took place on the third day.

Saint Helena conducted excavations on Mount Golgotha ​​in the 4th century. She managed to find the cross on which Christ was crucified there, after which the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was founded on this site.