Archaeologists have completed an excavation beneath one of Christianity's holiest sites, revealing a fuller picture of the ancient landscape where Jesus Christ was crucified and buried and providing support for scripture — something an early Christianity expert said he found very compelling. Francesca Stasolla, an archaeology professor at the Sapienza University of Rome, led the excavation in 2025, which 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.ARCHAEOLOGISTS UNCOVER MYSTERIOUS FACE HIDDEN FOR CENTURIES IN BOOK OF REVELATION CITYThe report follows findings noted by Fox News Digital last year.At the time, Stasolla confirmed that her team had uncovered ancient seeds and pollen in layers dating between the site's use as a quarry and its later Roman occupation.Archaeologists have completed an excavation beneath Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre, one of the holiest sites of Christianity.(LTL/Heritage Images via Getty Images; Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images)The evidence is consistent with John 19:41 in the New Testament: "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."The pollen and seeds date to "between the use of the quarry and the Roman age, when the area had a funerary use," Stasolla told Fox News Digital in 2025.ARCHAEOLOGISTS UNCOVER MASSIVE ARTIFACT DEPICTING PHARAOH THOUGHT TO HAVE CHALLENGED MOSES IN EXODUS"The quarry had to be gradually abandoned and as the stone extraction ended, it was used for agricultural areas and tombs," Stasolla said. "This must have been what it looked like in the first century A.D."Recent archaeological findings are helping researchers reconstruct the ancient landscape around the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
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