August 2006 
Ark of the Covenant Excavation Reveals Plastered Enclosure

12,000 Gallon Cistern?

Excavations just completed in Jerusalem revealed what appears to be a 12,000 gallon Byzantine cistern.  A circular plastered enclosure measuring approximately sixteen feet in diameter and approximately ten feet in height was partially excavated.  The cistern having walls as much as six feet in thickness adjoins an un-plastered circular room which surrounds the crevice which Ron Wyatt associated with the crucifixion site.  

A date has not been established for the un-plastered room and at this time archaeologists are uncertain as to it's function. Quoting one investigator: "I am perplexed.  I have never seen anything exactly like this."

The photo at the top is a view of the excavation from the surface some thirty feet above.  

At the bottom and right side of the picture steel shoring frames are visible.  

At right-center the un-plastered circular room surrounding the "crevice" and "cross hole" area can be seen.  Removal of the overburden, by way of the recent excavations, made it possible to reveal and define the circular nature of the room.  In the past only portions of the walls could be seen on each side of the "crevice" and "cross hole."  A steel drilling platform which was employed in the excavation is seen in the center of the room.  

In the lower left an excavation opening is seen which leads into the cistern.  This opening was created as a result of the recent dig and is in addition to an 2005 opening through a six foot thick cistern wall that is built on bedrock.  

The elevation of the bedrock under the cistern wall gets higher as it extends to the north toward the cliff face.  The man made portion of the cistern wall is five or six feet high where we cut through last year.  Near the cliff face the bedrock is at a much higher elevation requiring less construction.  

It is interesting to note that we find the remains of a plastered floor at the elevation of the cistern rim.  The wall of the circular room surrounding the "cross hole" and "crevice" seems to have been slightly higher than that of the cistern, as it extends above the plastered floor by about eighteen inches.

 

It is also  interesting to note that the "cross hole" and "crevice" is located in the center of the unidentified circular room.

At the top-center sand bags cover a portion of a stone stairway.  The lower portion of the stairway is missing and seems to have been unintentionally removed by Ron Wyatt as he originally entered the area.  Working underground and in a confined area it would have been impossible for Ron to have recognized the nature of the stones that had to be removed for access.  Projecting down the existing stairs, the indication is that the stairway would lead into the cistern along it's Northern walls.

The second image is an overlay of the 2005 excavation along with the outline of the position of the circular walls as revealed by the recent excavation. 

2005 OFFICIAL REPORT
ISRAEL ANTIQUITIES AUTHORITY:

1. Location map.    2. Plan and sections.    3. Pottery.    4. Glass finds (drawings).    5. Glass finds (photograph).    The Glass Finds  Natalia Katznelson     A few fragments of glass vessels were found, including the unique cylinder seal from the eighth-seventh centuries BCE. The seal was made of transparent, colorless glass, which is quite rare in such an object; it bears a wheel-cut pattern, depicting a cultic scene. A wide perforation in the center of the cylinder may indicate its secondary use as a bead. The other finds consisted of three fragments of vessels on bases with a thick wound trail along the edge (Figs. 4:1–3; 5), which belong to a well-known type of conical beakers or lamps from the fourth century CE. However, variants of beakers/lamps with similar bases are rare in excavated assemblages in the country. Other fragments, also dating to the Roman period (second–fourth centuries CE), included a beaker (Fig. 4:4), a bowl (Fig. 4:5) and a jug with a ribbed handle.

During August 2005 a trial excavation was conducted within the Garden Tomb compound, north of the Damascus Gate (Permit No. A-4549*). The excavation, on behalf of the Antiquities Authority and funded by two foundations from the United States––the Wyatt Archaeological Research (WAR) of Tennessee and the Biblical Archaeology Foundation (BAF) of Texas––was directed by Y. Zelinger, with the assistance of V. Pirsky (surveying), I. Berin (drafting), T. Sagiv (photography), N. Katznelson (glass finds), T. Ornan (cylinder seal), D.T. Ariel (numismatics), C. Hersch (glass and pottery drawings), as well as volunteers from around the world. The excavation was conducted south of a natural bedrock outcrop that was identified by General C. Gordon in 1883 as Golgotha (Fig. 1). During the 1980s, R. Wyatt excavated several underground chambers at the site. The current excavation cleaned and documented the former chambers and additional chambers were excavated. The underground complex was entered by way of a narrow natural shaft (L100; 1.0–1.2 m; Fig. 2), descending 5 m deep and opening into an irregular-shaped chamber (L101, 2 × 3 m, 2.8 m high). A narrow opening (0.65 × 1.00 m) was breached in the southern wall of the chamber, leading into a rock-hewn corridor, aligned east–west. The passage westward was blocked by the collapse of earth and stones; eastward, it led into a circular building (L102; diam. 3 m) whose walls were built of fieldstones (0.3–0.4 m wide) and were founded on the steps of an ancient quarry, which descended vertically c. 2.5 m southward. The building’s function was not ascertained due to the limitations of the excavation. It was probably part of a residential structure or an industrial installation. The soil fill in L102 yielded an extremely worn coin that dated to the Umayyad period (697–750 CE; IAA 101943). Most of the potsherds from the fill in L102dated to the Hellenistic–Byzantine periods––a spindle bottle from the Hellenistic period (Fig. 3:7), a cooking pot, a jar and a lamp from the Roman period (Fig. 3:5, 6, 8) and a bowl from the Byzantine period (Fig. 3:4).     Other finds recovered from the fill included a krater dating to Iron Age II (Fig. 3:1), a jar of Iron Age I (Fig. 3:2) and a broken animal figurine (Fig. 3:3), which is well known in Iron Age II Jerusalem. A special find was a glass cylinder seal (diam. 0.75 cm, length 1.7 cm; the seal was identified as such by C. Hersch), dating to the eighth-seventh centuries BCE. The seal is in the local Neo-Assyrian style and portrays a worshipper in front of a crescent on a stick, representing the moon god, Sin of H aran.  The southern wall of the circular building was breached and led into another irregular-shaped chamber, which was not excavated due to safety issues. However, its curved western wall was probably the outer wall of a water cistern, revealed in a ground penetrating radar examination.     The finds that were disturbed by the previous excavation and the conditions of the current excavation made it difficult to understand the remains. The earliest phase at the site was a quarry, survived by severance channels of the masonry stones. It was part of the extensive quarry known from the nearby Zedekiah’s Cave and Jeremiah’s Pit. The ceramic finds and cylinder seal from the Iron Age were perhaps debris from an Iron Age cemetery in the nearby St. Etienne, which had apparently extended over the area of the Garden Tomb as well. The respective amounts of ceramic finds recovered from the building indicate it can be dated to the Roman period.