Archaeologists have discovered a long lost altar at the location where Jesus was said to be buried and then resurrected.
The discovery was made after construction workers turned around a giant stone slab covered in graffiti that was leaning up against the wall of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
The stone, eight feet long and five feet wide, was decorated with ribbon ornaments, a Roman practice during Medieval times, leading researchers to determine it was the altar consecrated in 1149. It was long believed that the altar had been destroyed in the fire of 1808.
‘For historians, this find is a sensation in several respects,’ shared archaeologists from the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) who made the discovery.
‘Firstly, the fact that the slab could have remained hidden for so long in such an intensively researched building as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre – especially as it was in view of thousands of pilgrims and tourists every day.’
The site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is identified as the place of both the crucifixion and the tomb of Jesus, and sees around four million visitors each year.
The church, which exceeds nearly 5,400 feet in diameter, was built on top of a Roman temple dedicated to the goddess Venus in 335AD.
The construction was commissioned by Roman emperor Constantine I and during the conversion, a tomb was uncover that is believe to be that of Jesus who died nearly 300 years earlier.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was under attack throughout centuries, destroyed by the Persian army in 614, nearly demolished in 1009 and then burst into flames during the 1800s, which is when the altar was believed to have been lost.
Tourists had long graffitied the front facing portion of the slab, which may be why it had gone unnoticed for centuries.
But the unusual decorations on the wall-facing side led the researchers to the so-called ‘Cosmatesque.’
‘This special production technique for marble decoration was practiced exclusively by guild masters in papal Rome, who passed the skill down from generation to generation,’ the team shared.
‘A characteristic feature of this technique was its masters’ ability to decorate large surfaces with small quantities of precious marble.
‘In medieval Rome marble was mainly scraped from ancient buildings, forcing the Cosmatesque masters to optimize whatever marble they could find.
‘Their solution was to put small marble pieces together with the utmost precision, attaching it in such a way as to create complex geometric patterns and dazzling ornaments.’
Cosmatesque artworks are deemed as being cherished by the Pope, so much that rarely any have been found outside of Rome and only one in Westminster Abbey has been found outside of Italy.
‘The Cosmatesque altar now rediscovered in Jerusalem must also have been created with the Pope’s blessing,’ said the researchers.
‘By sending one of the Cosmatesque masters to the Kingdom of Jerusalem to make the new high altar in Christianity’s holiest church, the Pontif supported Christianity’s claim to the city.’
Renovations at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre has been continually under renovations, which has produced historical treasures.
In 2016, a conservation team from the National Technical University of Athens uncovered a limestone burial slab inside the tomb of Jesus that had been covered by layers of marbles since at least 1555.
Christian tradition says Christ’s body was laid on a slab cut from a limestone cave after his crucifixion by the Romans.
He was resurrected three days after his death, according to scripture, and the women who came to anoint his body said no remains were found.
‘We may not be absolutely certain that the site of the Holy Sepulchre Church is the site of Jesus burial, but we certainly have no other site that can lay a claim nearly as weighty, and we really have no reason to reject the authenticity of the site,’ Dan Bahat, a former district archaeologist in Jerusalem and Galilee said.
Dozens of crosses littering the church’s walls were discovered in 2018, which were thought to have been works of graffiti by Crusaders.
