A Detailed Description of the Garden Tomb Burial Cave

The burial cave at the Garden Tomb, on the western escarpment of the hill, was hewn out of limestone from the Turonian geological period^m At the Garden Tomb cave, the escarpment is about 18 feet high.

The Garden Tomb cave consists of two rooms, an entrance chamber and an inner chamber. The two rooms are beside one another. After going into the entrance chamber (on the north), the visitor sees the inner chamber on the right (south).

The rectangular opening into the entrance chamber is about 4 ½ feet high and about 21 in feet wide. Originally the opening was probably smaller than it is today. The threshold of the opening is about 1 in feet above the ground outside the cave, so that the visitor must step up to go inside.

The entrance chamber itself is roughly rectangular, nearly ten feet long, nearly seven feet wide, and six feet high.

In the east wall of the entrance chamber, opposite the doorway, a horizontal line about three feet above the floor appears in the wall. The dressing of the rock face above this line is different from the dressing below it. Originally, below the line a rock-hewn burial bench probably extended from the wall. This burial bench was later removed, most likely in the Byzantine period.