The Location of the Excavation

Jerusalem is situated on 2 hills, traditionally referred to as "Mt. Moriah" and Mt. Zion". To the extreme right can be seen the beginning of the Mt. of Olives.

"Moriah" is mentioned only twice in the Bible- first as the place Abraham was told to take Isaac and offer him as a sacrifice, and second as the place where the temple was built:

GEN 22:2 And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

2CH 3:1 Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem in mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.

The quarry which contains the site Ron was to excavate is part of the northern extension of Mt. Moriah. On the east, south and west sides of Jerusalem are very deep valleys which protect the city from foreign invaders. But on this north side, they were vulnerable. Therefore, a "dry moat" or trench was quarried out of "Mt. Moriah" on the north side to prevent an enemy from being able to simply reach and break through the wall along this ridge. Then, at some unknown point in time, the northern portion of "Moriah", now separated from the city, was used as a stone quarry. Starting on the south end of this now separated part of "Moriah", on the western side, stone was cut out of the mountain, lowering the ground level to that of the trench which extends just outside of the north wall.

 

The site Ron pointed to was along the quarried face (escarpment) of "Mt. Moriah". This cliff-face is referred to by some as "the Calvary escarpment" because it contains the "skull-face" that many believe was "Golgotha" or "Calvary" where Christ was crucified.

It also contains the site traditionally called "Jeremiah's Grotto", the "Garden Tomb" (where many believe Christ was buried) and St. Etienne which contains a large complex of Jewish tombs dating to the 1st and 2nd temple periods cut into the side of the mountain.

The escarpment is many hundreds of feet long. And it was Ron's belief that this WAS the general area of the crucifixion, and the Garden Tomb, he also believed, was indeed that of Joseph of Arimathaea which had once held the body of Christ. But these things were not related to this project. He was now searching for the Ark of the Covenant.

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