Key Biblical Gate Found, Researchers Say

Archeologists digging on the south slope of Mt. Zion believe they have found the gate through which Jesus left Jerusalem after the Last Supper, a project leader said last week.

Volunteer researchers and students found what they believe to be remnants of the gate last summer while excavating a site along the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City.

“This is more evidence that we are standing on the cradle of Christianity,” the Rev. Bargil Pixner, co-director of the project, said during a tour of the site. “It is an incredible find.”

Ancient coins and pottery scattered near the gate prove the ruins date to the time of Christ, said archeologist Doron Chen of Hebrew University.

Broken Support Column

Members of the team said they found the gate’s remains--a broken support column and stone blocks that formed an arch--in a maze of walls and towers dating as far back as 700 BC.

Chen said the gate, buried beneath more than 12 feet of dirt and rock, was built in 37 BC and destroyed about 100 years later when the Romans conquered Jerusalem again.

Pixner, a priest at the Benedictine Abbey of Dormition, said the dating and the location on the southern edge of Mt. Zion match biblical accounts of the Last Supper.

“Everything we’ve found indicates that this is the place,” Pixner declared.

“It can safely be presumed that Jesus used this gate on his way to and from the Last Supper,” he said, pointing to the spot about 800 feet farther up Mt. Zion where Christians believe Jesus met the apostles.

The Bible’s account of the Last Supper says Jesus was staying in nearby Bethany and told the apostles to go to Jerusalem, where a man carrying a water pitcher would lead them to their meeting place.

Pixner said he believes Jesus and the apostles gathered at a guest house near where the excavators found the remnants of the gate, which he described as about 10 feet wide and 15 to 20 feet high. They have named it the Gate of Essene after a small Jewish religious community