The deep pit

Byzantines were convinced it had served as a dungeon into which Jesus was held captive before being brought to the Sanhedrin.

Three crosses were engraved in the rock, all around the hole, and other crosses were painted on the walls as signs of their veneration.

After the destruction of the Crusader church, the deep pit was transformed into a cistern. The 1889 excavations discovered the Byzantines crosses under the coating of this cistern’s walls.

The guardhouse

Discovered in 1908, these caves suggested the prison where, according to a Jerusalem tradition reported by the Anonymous Pilgrim of Bordeaux in 333, Jesus was flogged.

After the Resurrection, the Apostles Peter and John suffered the same fate after they preached Jesus name in the Temple area (Acts 5, 19-42).

“By clearing the caves that touch the cave of the crosses, there is a series of rings carved in the rock, either on the corners or in the plane surfaces.” Diary of excavations of November 1, 1908, p.301-302

The rings carved into the rock suggest they were used to tie up prisonners, two rings on the ceiling allowed to immobilize those who were flogged.