Hmm. Maybe ...

 Discovered: Stunning 2,000-year-old secret beneath Jesus 'burial site' that perfectly aligns with Bible account.

By STACY LIBERATORE, US SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR

Published: 11:49 EDT, 25 August 2026 | Updated: 12:38 EDT, 25 August 2026

 

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  The Bible describes Jesus' burial place as a tomb carved into rock, set inside a garden near where he was crucified.

For nearly 1,700 years, Christians have believed that tomb lies within Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

The first church was built over the site by Roman Emperor Constantine in the fourth century, and generations of pilgrims have since traveled there to pray where Christ is believed to have been crucified, buried and resurrected.

Now, with excavations beneath the church complete, archaeologists have pieced together a fuller picture of an ancient landscape that bears a striking resemblance to the one described in the Gospel of John.

Lead archaeologist Francesca Romana Stasolla told the Daily Mail: 'We have found evidence of a funerary landscape, alongside small areas planted with vines and olive trees, as well as a pastoral landscape characterized by sporadic human activity.'

The excavations show that the church stands over an abandoned quarry outside ancient Jerusalem where cultivated plots and multiple rock-cut tombs existed side by side.

That combination closely mirrors John's description of a garden containing a tomb near the place where Jesus was crucified.

Although no physical evidence identifies the tomb's occupant, the parallels keep alive the possibility that early Christians preserved the true location of Jesus' burial.

 

Archaeologists have found evidence beneath  the Church of the Holy Sepulchre that aligns with what the Bible says about where Jesus was buried

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The Church of the Holy Sepulchre attracts an estimated four million visitors each year.

The original church was dedicated in AD 335 after Roman buildings at the site, traditionally described as a temple to the goddess Venus, were demolished.

During the work, builders uncovered a rock-cut chamber that was identified as the burial place of Jesus, who had died nearly 300 years earlier.

Emperor Constantine's workers focused on one particular tomb that was already being venerated as Christ's burial place, excavating around it to separate it from the surrounding graves. 

The second church at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which stands today, was built and restored starting around 614 to 626 AD, following the destruction and fire caused by the Persian Sassanid invasion.

The discoveries add to the ongoing debate over the location of Jesus' burial.

Many scholars support the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as the site, citing the presence of rock-cut tombs from the first century.

Others argue that the Garden Tomb, another ancient burial site in Jerusalem, better matches biblical descriptions.

There is a long-held debate over where Jesus was laid to rest. Some say the church while others believe he was put inside an ancient rock-cut tomb, known as the Garden Tomb (pictured), which aligns with Biblical text

Archeologists were excavating the floor of the church (pictured) when they uncovered signs of an ancient garden that is mentioned in the Bible as where Jesus was laid to rest

The latest findings are detailed in a new 98-page preliminary report published in Liber Annuus, the archaeological journal of Jerusalem's Studium Biblicum Franciscanum. 

The report brings together results from the final 2025 excavation campaign, completing a project that began during a major restoration of the church's floor in March 2022.

Evidence of the ancient garden was first announced in 2025, but completed excavations have now allowed researchers to reconstruct how the cultivated land, abandoned quarry and burial chambers fitted together across the wider site.

The report revealed that the landscape began as a vast stone quarry cut into the side of a hill outside Jerusalem's ancient walls, with some sections reaching nearly 20 feet beneath the church's present floor.

As stone extraction gradually ended, the deepest areas were filled with soil and divided by low dry-stone walls, creating small plots that could be cultivated.

'Evidence of cultivation is provided by archaeobotanical and pollen remains, which have enabled us to reconstruct a landscape suitable for pastoralism, with natural vegetation used for grazing,' Stasolla said.

The first church was built over the site by Roman Emperor Constantine in the fourth century. Pictured on the right is part of the foundation wall of Constantine's church

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Above are Christians touching the Unction Stone at the entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which they believe marks the sacred spot where the body of Jesus was washed, anointed with spices, and wrapped in linen for burial

'This type of Mediterranean landscape was widespread throughout the region and coexisted with the abandoned quarry area and the presence of rock-cut tombs.'

Researchers dated the cultivated landscape through its position within the archaeological layers and pottery recovered from the quarry fills.

The evidence places it after the quarry was abandoned but before Emperor Hadrian rebuilt the area in the second century AD, a broad period encompassing the lifetime of Jesus.

However, the plant remains have not been given an absolute laboratory date, meaning archaeologists cannot prove the garden was being cultivated at the precise time of Christ's crucifixion.

Archaeologists also recovered traces of fruits, legumes and wild vegetation, revealing an open Mediterranean landscape that was cultivated, visited and used for grazing but not permanently inhabited.

At the same time, exposed rock faces left behind by the quarry provided ideal locations for burial chambers to be carved directly into the stone.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre attracts an estimated four million visitors each year

The inside of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre features stunning mosaics throughout

Researchers found multiple tombs opening into the same former quarry at different heights, connected by narrow paths winding between the graves and cultivated plots.

The result was a complex landscape where gardens, grazing land and rock-cut tombs existed together, just as the Gospel of John places a garden and burial chamber beside the site of Jesus' crucifixion.

John 19:41 reads: 'Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.'

The garden reference is one of several clues contained in the Bible.

John 19:20 places the crucifixion close to Jerusalem, while Hebrews 13:12 says Jesus suffered outside the city gate. Archaeologists found that the quarry stood outside Jerusalem's walls at the time of Jesus but remained close to the city, matching both descriptions.

Matthew, Mark and Luke each describe Jesus' grave as having been carved from rock. The excavations confirmed that the gardenlike landscape was also a genuine ancient burial ground containing multiple chambers cut directly into the quarry's exposed stone.

John also states that the tomb was close to the crucifixion site, allowing Jesus to be buried quickly before the Jewish Sabbath began. 

A Roman structure erected during Emperor Hadrian's reign in the second century stood directly against the tomb. Pictured are foundation walls constructed during his reign

Many Christians come to see the Stone of Anointing in Holy Sepulchre Church. Above are two nuns praying before the stone

At the Holy Sepulchre, the chamber traditionally identified as his tomb and the rock of Calvary exist within the same compact area.

None of those features was unique in ancient Jerusalem, as abandoned quarries were commonly reused for cultivation and burials. 

What makes the Holy Sepulchre compelling is the convergence of all the clues in one place: outside the ancient walls but close to the city, with cultivated land, a rocky crucifixion site and a cemetery containing rock-cut tombs.

Within that burial ground, one particular chamber would eventually become the focus of centuries of Christian veneration.

A Roman structure erected during Emperor Hadrian's reign in the second century stood directly against the tomb, making it inaccessible, while also cutting into the nearby rock of Calvary, the traditional site of Jesus' crucifixion.

The report suggested the surviving Roman walls may have belonged to a smaller cult site rather than the massive pagan temple described in traditional accounts.

Roughly two centuries later, Constantine's workers demolished the Roman structure and excavated the same location to expose the venerated tomb.

They removed the surrounding rock, separated the chamber from the other graves and constructed the first Christian shrine around it.

Its position was considered so important that architects allowed different sections of the enormous church complex to fall out of alignment rather than move the tomb.

The first monument was probably open to the sky and consisted of a small circular shrine surrounded by 12 columns, allowing early pilgrims to gather around the burial chamber.

Although none of this proves Jesus was buried inside, the decision to return to and preserve one specific tomb centuries later raises the possibility that knowledge of its location survived through generations of early Christians.

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The second church at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which stands today, was built and restored starting around 614 to 626 AD, following the destruction and fire caused by the Persian Sassanid invasion

Stasolla said: 'The archaeological area beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre reveals the long history of a part of Jerusalem that, in the early fourth century AD, underwent the monumentalization of Christological memory.

'In this case, I believe that the archaeological evidence should be used primarily to understand the places and contexts in which Christian memory took shape and became firmly established.'

The evidence shows that Christians were commemorating this particular location by the fourth century, but it cannot confirm that Jesus had been buried there three centuries earlier.

Important gaps remain, as no inscription identifies Jesus, and it cannot be definitively proven that the chamber was new, nor that it had been used or belonged to Joseph of Arimathea, as the Gospels state.

The Bible says that Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy member of the Jewish council, asked Pontius Pilate for the body of Jesus after the crucifixion, wrapping it in clean linen and placing it in his own unused rock-hewn tomb.

The discoveries therefore do not confirm the biblical account, but they demonstrate that the traditional site contains the principal geographical and physical features described in the New Testament.

'The Church of the Holy Sepulchre gives monumental form to the sites where, since very early times, tradition has located the memory of Christ's death and resurrection,' Stasolla said.

'Archaeology undoubtedly attests to the enduring nature of this commemorative tradition.' DM

Interesting - But The Labour Bounce Will Continue To Fade.

 Reform UK would win the most seats if there was a general election today, according to a new mega poll. The survey of more than 10,000 people found that Nigel Farage's party would be the largest party with 227 MPs.

Labour, which has enjoyed a poll bounce after Andy Burnham replaced Sir Keir Starmer, is second with 197 seats, according to the Survation poll. The Lib Dems would win 72, while Kemi Badenoch's Conservatives would be just behind with 71. The SNP would win 46 seats and Zack Polanski's Green Party would have four MPs.

• Nigel Farage maintains lead over Andy Burnham as bounce fades. Express

Torment.

 

Birdie.

 

A Superb Assessment.

 Abandonment of the white working class is a recipe for anarchy.

Middlesbrough’s descent into lawlessness exposes the fatal cost of post-industrial deprivation and a betrayed underclass

Simon Heffer .  

Published 29 August 2026 6:00am BST.

Almost every town, however affluent, has its rough areas or sink estates. The image projected by Middlesbrough over the last week or so, however, is that the whole town is in the tank. Since the shocking car crash last weekend that killed two policemen, and five louts driving the wrong way down a dual carriageway who ploughed into them, the lid has been taken off a community whose law and order problems are more like those we would normally associate with the worst parts of Los Angeles, Palermo or Johannesburg. For provincial England, this is shocking.

Numerous arrests have followed, with Cleveland Police stating there are links to organised crime. In 2019, the force had such a bad report from HM Inspectorate of Constabulary that it was put into special measures. Officers told inspectors the force was “directionless, rudderless and clueless”, and they found it had “collective and systemic failings”. The heroism of the two dead officers notwithstanding, the mayhem in Middlesbrough suggests their leaders may not have raised their game as much as necessary.

The family home of one of the dead youths was rammed by a vehicle, causing serious structural damage. A second house was rammed on Thursday. Another house was set on fire, with a woman and young girl killed, and two men arrested on suspicion of murder. Cleveland Police have not ruled out the fire being linked “to wider organised crime”. On Thursday night, several cars were set on fire at a vigil for one of the victims of the A66 crash.

Two homes in Middlesbrough have been rammed by cars this week, as local criminals are deemed ‘untouchable’ Credit: Owen Humphreys/PA Wire

Locals say this dystopian behaviour has been going on for months. The police say they are expected to deal with a “metropolitan” level of serious crime on funding designed for a “rural” force. It appears that if the law-abiding people of Middlesbrough are to be safe, some exceptional and drastic law-enforcement action will be required. The growing number of arrests suggests this is, however belatedly, under way.

Dealing with the effects, and even the symptoms, is one thing, and utterly necessary. However, dealing with the causes will be far more complicated. What is happening in Middlesbrough appears partly to be the consequence of letting a section of the white working class, or underclass, twist in the wind. In an era of identity politics, their identity appears to be the only one which no one could care less about because of the lack of political value in advancing it.

For generations, the white working class has been pushed aside and left to stew on welfare benefits or in low-esteem jobs. Now, Middlesbrough is one of the most deprived areas of the country, ranking 10th for the number of people deemed to have bad health or classified as long-term sick or disabled, 26th for unemployment (the local rate is 6.2 per cent compared to 4.5 per cent nationally), and 39th out of 361 areas for the number of welfare claimants.

It is easy to blame the de-industrialisation of the Thatcher years for the plight of these people, but it goes back far before that. Now, from being merely mildly disruptive and unpleasant – but largely hidden away – the addition of organised crime to the mix, on a shocking scale, has made it lethal.

Cleveland Police has yet to confirm what exactly the nature of the organised crime in Middlesbrough is, but a local councillor, speaking anonymously because of fear of reprisals, said that shoplifting, joyriding and drug dealing were out of control. The town has the highest level of offending per head outside London. Its most frequently reported offences are violent and sexual crimes. That is likely to be because one promiscuous crime – drug dealing – is not often reported. Police will tell you that around 80 per cent of crime in Britain is drug-related. If not dealing, it is related to robberies and burglaries committed to raise funds for drugs either for dealing or for personal use. Dealing is also linked to prostitution, money-laundering and people-trafficking.

The visible signs of the town’s decline were all too apparent this week. In Grangetown, where a seven-year-old girl and her aunt were killed in a house fire on Wednesday morning, empty, boarded-up properties lie dotted along residential streets lined with tired houses.

Old caravans and the odd abandoned vehicle have been left on pavements and in the driveways of derelict buildings, while only one or two convenience stores remain open among several empty or shuttered shop fronts. The Magnet, a pub that might once have marked the heart of Grangetown – ideally positioned on one of the main roads through the suburb – was once a popular venue that hosted discos and live music, but has now fallen into ruin. Its windows and doors are bricked up or clamped over with green metal security boards.

Abandoned vehicles, caravans and rubbish are among the visible signs of decline on Middlesbrough’s streets Credit: Lorne Campbell/Guzelian

“It’s been like that for 10 years, maybe even more,” says one woman, in her mid-60s. “I used to go with my husband and his friends all the time, and we loved it. Everyone did. They were going to make it flats at one point, but I don’t know now. It’s sad looking at it every day.”

In nearby South Bank, the neighbourhood where the fatal crash happened and where the house was rammed on Thursday morning, several teenagers and young men could be seen circling the streets this week in small groups riding bikes, almost all wearing balaclavas.

There, too, caravans sat among abandoned properties, just a street away from where new homes are being built. Some of the worst-looking streets were littered with rubbish and bordered by front gardens, which were often full of building materials or junk.

All over Britain, and not just in Middlesbrough, disaffected young people – those from dysfunctional families, with poor educational records and no settled employment – are vulnerable to recruitment by “county lines” drug dealing operations. “Organised crime” has become synonymous with this. The days of robbing banks and Securicor vans, as a senior policeman told me not long ago, are over because we are now a mostly cashless society. It is also why people walk into shops, scoop up goods from shelves, and walk out again.

A demoralised, poorly funded police force – further disaffected, doubtless, by the shocking fate of the two dedicated officers in the A66 crash – seems to Middlesbrough residents to have all but given up on such crimes. Regrettably, there are lessons here from Bill Bratton’s New York policing policy that pulled that city back from anarchy in the 1990s – if you assiduously pursue minor criminals, they may be saved from becoming major ones.

What is happening in Middlesbrough is a problem of the post-industrial white working class, and self-inflicted. Just over a century ago, their forebears on Teesside unhesitatingly joined the Army to fight in the Great War. The next generation did the same in 1939. They were patriotic, brave and generally honest. Even in the 1930s, when some parts of the North East had half their men out of work (in Jarrow before the March, unemployment reached 75 per cent), they did not easily resort to criminality or self-pity.

The Jarrow March took place in 1936, when unemployment had reached unprecedented levels  Credit: E. Dean/Hulton Archive

Such vices are the product of welfarism – the encouragement of the notion that one can simply become the state’s, or rather the taxpayer’s, responsibility – and the idea that any misfortune must be somebody else’s fault. Such a mentality has reduced the toughness of a once-resilient people, and helped dilute the essential distinction between right and wrong. The latter has been aggravated by the ease with which criminals get away with many of their crimes. Today, it is Middlesbrough that appears to be in a state of anarchy. How long, given that these toxic attitudes and inadequate law enforcement pertain around the country, before it becomes commonplace rather than exceptional?

For make no mistake, there are sink estates all over Britain, even in the most affluent areas. Mostly, the middle classes are insulated from them, but the people who have to live on them and are not inevitably amoral are being betrayed by a state whose first duty is to protect them. No wonder so many of them feel no connection with it, and bring up children who can see no reason to adopt its values.

A Cambridge don I knew grew up in London’s East End in the 1950s and, thanks to a superb grammar school, he reached university and then the top of his profession. He talked to me some years ago about what he perceived to be the death of the respectable working class. He had recently been back to visit his elderly father, a Second World War veteran who still lived in Stepney, and had worked all his life in a lowly occupation. He told his son: “We’ve gone from the salt of the earth to the scum of the earth in a couple of generations.”

Never has the story of the decline of this social group been told better than by Michael Collins in his stunning and still indispensable book, The Likes Of Us: A Biography of the White Working Class, published in 2004. Much of it was about the gentrification of the part of Southwark where the author grew up, and the consequent dispersal of those who had lived there and the loss of their distinct culture. Collins reminds the reader of various London riots of racial motivations, such as Brixton and Broadwater Farm. One takes away the idea that while much has been done to provide outreach schemes and other services and facilities for the marginalised black working class, nothing equally targeted appears to have been done for its white counterparts.

The widely available grammar schools that offered a passport to the middle class and a professional career for self-starting working-class boys and girls in the 1950s were steadily destroyed after 1965 by Tony Crosland, the privately educated Labour education secretary. When one looks at Middlesbrough and other deprived areas, schools of low expectations and outcomes are all too obvious. On Teesside, a tiny percentage of A-level students get into Oxbridge, even though admissions tutors are desperate for state-educated students.