‘JESUS CRYPT’ DRAMA
Church dated to A.D. 345
THE ANCIENT tomb that Christians believe housed the remains of Jesus Christ is nearly 1,000 years older than some experts suspected.
Tests run on the limestone cave in Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre revealed the tomb was originally constructed in A.D. 345, National Geographic reported Tuesday. That seems to confirm that the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine, ordered it be enshrined around the same time.
“Obviously that date is spot-on for whatever Constantine did,” archaeologist Martin Biddle told the magazine. “That’s very remarkable.”
The tomb was believed by some to have been constructed during the era of the Crusaders — which would make it no older than 1,000 years old.
Experts analyzed mortar from the surface of the tomb as well as the marble slab that covers it to establish that the vault is closer to 1,700 years old. They relied on a process called optically stimulated luminescence, which determined when the sediment was last exposed to light, according to the publication.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre — where the cave was first discovered by the Romans around 326 A.D. — was destroyed by a Muslim ruler in 1009 and later rebuilt. The tomb has since withstood violent attacks, fires and earthquakes.
Researchers were initially skeptical that the remains of the cave were evidence of the early Roman shrine, though new tests support such claims.
In October 2016, the tomb was opened for the first time in centuries when the shrine housing it — called Edicule — was restored by the National Technical University in Athens.
While experts will never be able to officially establish that the tomb held Christ, it is the most widely accepted site of Jesus’ crucifixion, burial and resurrection — typically referred to in the bible as Golgotha or Calvary.