534 RUINS OF JERUSALEM. 



scull ; that is to say, a public cemetry, called in the Hebrew, 

 Golgotha; without the city, and very near to one of its gates. 

 St. Luke calls it Calvary, which has the same signification. The 

 church, supposed to mark the site of the holy sepulchre, exhibits no 

 where the slightest evidence which might entitle it to either of these 

 appellations. Can there be, therefore, aught of impiety or of teme- 

 rity in venturing to surmise, that upon the opposite summit, now 

 called M mntSion, without the walls, the crucifixion of the Messiah 

 was actually accomplished ? Perhaps the evidence afforded by 

 existing documents may further illustrate this most interesting sub- 

 ject. These will now be enumerated. 



Upon all the sepulchres at the base of this mount, which, as the 

 place of a scull, we have (he authority of the gospel for calling 

 either Calvary or Golgotha, whether the place of crucifixion or 

 not, there are inscriptions, in Hebrew and in Greek. The Hebrew 

 inscriptions are the most effaced : of these it is difficult to make 

 any tolerable copy. Besides the injuries they have sustained by 

 time, they have been covered by some carbonaceous substance, 

 cither bituminous or furaid, which rendered the task of transcribing 

 them yet more arduous. The Greek inscriptions are brief and 

 legible, consisting of immense letters deeply carved in the face of 

 the rock, either over the door, or by the side, of the sepulchres. 

 Upon the first we observed these characters : 



+ THCAFIAC 

 CIVVN 



OF . TUB . HOLY 

 SION 



Having entered by the door of this sepulchre, we found a spacious 

 chamber cut in the rock, connected with a series of other subterranean 

 apartments; one leading into another, and containing an extensive 

 range of receptacles for the dead, as in those excavations before 

 alluded to, (but which appear of more recent date,) lying to the 

 north of Jerusalem, at a more considerable distance from the city ; 

 and also as in the Cryptae of the Necropolis near Alexandria in 

 Egypt Opposite to the entrance, but lower down in the rock, a 

 second, and a similar aperture, led to another chamber beyond the 

 first. Over the entrance to this, also, we observed an inscription, 

 nearly obliterated, but differing from the first, by the addition f 

 two letters: 



