New excavation at Jerusalem holy site supports Gospel account of Jesus’ burial garden
Archaeologists have completed an excavation beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, uncovering evidence of a garden and agricultural use that aligns with the Gospel of John’s description of Jesus’ burial place.
Archaeologists have completed a major excavation beneath one of Christianity’s holiest sites, revealing new details about the ancient landscape where Jesus Christ was crucified and buried — findings that an early Christianity expert says add archaeological support to the biblical account.
Francesca Stasolla, an archaeology professor at the Sapienza University of Rome, led the 2025 excavation focused on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The findings were recently published in Liber Annuus, the archaeological journal of Jerusalem’s Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, in a 98-page preliminary report on the campaign.
The evidence is consistent with John 19:41 in the New Testament, which states: «Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.» Stasolla’s team uncovered ancient seeds and pollen in layers dating between the site’s use as a quarry and its later Roman occupation, when the area served a funerary purpose.
«The quarry had to be gradually abandoned and as the stone extraction ended, it was used for agricultural areas and tombs,» Stasolla told Fox News Digital in 2025. «This must have been what it looked like in the first century A.D.»
The church was identified as Jesus’ burial place during the reign of Roman Emperor Constantine in the fourth century, when the first church was built there. Though it has been a Christian pilgrimage site for nearly 1,700 years, archaeologists are now reconstructing what the area may have looked like around the time of Jesus.
Douglas Estes, associate professor of religion at New College of Florida, who specializes in early Christianity and was not involved in the research, said the findings add archaeological support to details described in the Gospel of John. He noted that the Book of John is often dismissed by skeptics as exaggerated, but archaeology has «over time, confirmed, again and again, details from the Gospel of John.»
Estes pointed to historical parallels, noting that in the 19th century scholars questioned whether there could be five colonnades at the Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem, as John 5 describes. Later archaeological discoveries confirmed that there were indeed five colonnades there. «In the same way, scholars have largely doubted whether or not Jesus would have been buried in an orchard,» he said. «But instead we find confirmed that there was a garden there — and so the Gospel of John has been proven to be accurate again in the details.»
The professor said he was personally excited by the recent discoveries and that he has «a lot of hope that archaeology will continue to reveal significant finds about the life of Jesus.»
«It’s an exciting time to be alive, to be able to experience everything from the Dead Sea Scrolls all the way to the discovery of this funerary landscape,» Estes said. «These great archeological discoveries are great for those of us who want to learn more about first-century Judaism, first-century Christianity and the life of Jesus.»
