Calvary
[5] Versions of these names have been used in English since at least the 10th century,[6] a tradition shared with most European languages including French (Calvaire), Spanish and Italian (Calvario), pre-Lutheran German (Calvarie),[7][8] Polish (Kalwaria), and Lithuanian (Kalvarijos).
[19] Golgotha's Hebrew equivalent would be Gulgōleṯ (גֻּלְגֹּלֶת, "skull"),[22][23] ultimately from the verb galal (גלל) meaning "to roll".
[24] The form preserved in the Greek text, however, is actually closer to Aramaic Golgolta,[25] which also appears in reference to a head count in the Samaritan version of Numbers 1:18,[26][27] although the term is traditionally considered to derive from Syriac Gāgūlṯā (ܓܓܘܠܬܐ) instead.
The usual form of the legend is that Shem and Melchizedek retrieved the body of Adam from the resting place of Noah's ark on Mount Ararat and were led by angels to Golgotha, a skull-shaped hill at the center of the earth where Adam had previously crushed the serpent's head following the Fall of Man.
[13] In the 19th century, Wilhelm Ludwig Krafft proposed an alternative derivation of these names, suggesting that the place had actually been known as "Gol Goatha"—which he interpreted to mean "heap of death" or "hill of execution"—and had become associated with the similar sounding Semitic words for "skull" in folk etymologies.
Henry Chadwick (2003) argued that when Hadrian's builders replanned the old city, they "incidentally confirm[ed] the bringing of Golgotha inside a new town wall.
"[40] In 2007 Dan Bahat, the former City Archaeologist of Jerusalem and Professor of Land of Israel Studies at Bar-Ilan University, stated that "Six graves from the first century were found on the area of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Less than 45 meters (150 ft) away, Helena also identified the location of the tomb of Jesus and claimed to have discovered the True Cross; her son, Constantine, then built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre around the whole site.
In 333, the author of the Itinerarium Burdigalense, entering from the east, described the result: On the left hand is the little hill of Golgotha where the Lord was crucified.
Nazénie Garibian de Vartavan argued that the now-buried Constantinian basilica’s altar was built over the site.
Constantine's construction took over most of the site of the earlier temple enclosure, and the Rotunda and cloister (which was replaced after the 12th century by the present Catholicon and Calvary chapel) roughly overlap with the temple building itself; the basilica church Constantine built over the remainder of the enclosure was destroyed at the turn of the 11th century, and has not been replaced.
[44] There is certainly evidence that c. 160, at least as early as 30 years after Hadrian's temple had been built, Christians associated it with the site of Golgotha; Melito of Sardis, an influential mid-2nd century bishop in the region, described the location as "in the middle of the street, in the middle of the city",[45] which matches the position of Hadrian's temple within the mid-2nd century city.
Virgilio Corbo, a Franciscan priest and archaeologist, present at the excavations, suggested that from the city the little hill (which still exists) could have looked like a skull.
[61] During a 1986 repair to the floor of the Calvary Chapel by the art historian George Lavas and architect Theo Mitropoulos, a round slot of 11.5 cm (4.5 in) diameter was discovered in the rock, partly open on one side (Lavas attributes the open side to accidental damage during his repairs);[62] although the dating of the slot is uncertain, and could date to Hadrian's temple of Aphrodite, Lavas suggested that it could have been the site of the crucifixion, as it would be strong enough to hold in place a wooden trunk of up to 2.5 metres (8 ft 2 in) in height (among other things).
[citation needed] Based on the late 20th century excavations of the site, there have been a number of attempted reconstructions of the profile of the cliff face.
Some archaeologists have suggested that prior to Hadrian's use, the rock outcrop had been a nefesh – a Jewish funeral monument, equivalent to the stele.
