The Last Supper – Jesus’ final meal with his apostles before being crucified – is one of the most iconic stories in the Bible.
Now, 2,000 years later, archaeologists are channeling their efforts to find its exact location in Jerusalem.
They believe that the Biblical meeting occurred in the ‘Upper Room’ of a two-story house with limestone walls and a red, sloped roof that still stands in the city.
The location has been documented in several artworks dating to at least the fourth century AD, which was also when Christians first started visiting the room to honor Christ’s last moments of freedom before the crucifixion.
And thousands of people still visit the Upper Room every year.
The Bible details the story of the Last Supper in 33 AD, when Jesus sat with his 12 apostles and told them that one among their number would betray him, adding that his death was imminent.
He blessed the bread and wine, and explained that it represented his body that would be broken and the blood he would shed for the forgiveness of their sins.
The Upper Room, also known as the Cenacle, was originally a prayer room that could house more than 120 people.
The room is briefly described in the Book of Luke 22:11-13, when Jesus requested a large, furnished upper room where he and his disciples could eat their Passover meal.
The Cenacle stands in the old city of Jerusalem on Mount Zion, which is located above the southern gate and was constructed with large, branching columns that supported a vaulted ceiling and a sloping red roof that is still there today.
Because researchers haven’t been able to conduct any archaeological digs, they’re unable to confirm whether the building existed during the Last Supper.
In 1884, Greek Orthodox Christians discovered what is believed to be the earliest map of Jerusalem while building a new church in Madaba, Jordan.
The map was created in 560 AD as a representation of the Holy Land that shows the Cardo Maximus (main street) extending across the mid-section and two sacred structures on the southern end (lower right side) that were identified by their red roofs.
All landscapes were described in Greek including the Damascus Gate and Plaza on the left side, the southern Jaffa Gate at the bottom and Bethlehem at the far right.
But it wasn’t until 2017 that David Christian Clausen, an adjunct lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, noticed something unusual – there was a building with the same red, sloped roof as the Cenacle and it was in the same location.
This led researchers to suspect that the Upper Room was the site of the Last Supper, but they still needed more evidence, which appeared in a sixth-century drawing discovered in Italy in 1846.
The drawing showed Jesus traveling through the southern gates of the city on a donkey with the Cenacle in the background.
This story is conveyed in the Book of Matthew, which tells of Jesus entering Jerusalem to fulfill the prophecy of Zechariah which said there would be a ‘Second coming of Jesus Christ’ and the dead would be resurrected.
The story says: ‘Tell the city of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you! He is humble and rides on a donkey and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’
Another depiction of the site was uncovered in 1585 AD of a fourth-century sculpture that showed Jesus standing before Mary Magdalene after he rose from the dead, and just behind where he stood was a building with the same slanted roof.
According to the Book of John, Jesus returned to the Upper Room after his resurrection, linking the depiction of him and Mary Magdalene to the Biblical story.
However, some archaeologists have argued that the sculpture shows Christ standing before an unknown kneeling woman who is asking him to heal her, rather than representing his resurrection.
The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) set out to test the theory in 2019 by using laser technology and advanced photographic imaging to strip away all the updates made to the Cenacle over the years and reveal what it originally looked like during the Last Supper.
‘I felt like I was in the book by Dan Brown, ‘The Da Vinci Code’,’ Amit Re’em, Jerusalem district archaeologist for the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), told Fox News at the time. ‘We needed to decipher the ancient symbols.’
They mapped every corner of the room to ‘create accurate models of the space’ which revealed interesting features in the Cenacle.
The newly created imagery showed ‘obscure’ artwork such as the symbols of the Agnus Dei, or ‘Lamb of God,’ and the Lion of Judah on the ceiling.
‘The lion was the symbol of King David,’ Re’em told Fox, explaining that ‘according to ancient scriptures, Jesus was a descendent of King David.’
Researchers still need to conduct more studies, according to Re-em who said there still isn’t any archaeological evidence that the Cenacle was the site of the Last Supper.
The IAA has previously said that the site’s poor illumination, faded walls and continued remodels have prevented them from conducting more research.
‘From time to time, when we have an opportunity, we’re continuing to document other parts of the holy complex,’ Re’em told Fox.
‘I hope that maybe, in the future, we will have the opportunity to conduct a small-scale classical archaeological investigation.’
Source: Daily Mail
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