The Place of the Skull

 

So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus, John 19:16 ESV.

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In 1883 British Major-General Charles George Gordon identified a site that he believed to be the tomb in which Jesus had been laid after noticing a skull face sunk into the rock opposite the old city walls. Charles George believed it to be the Golgotha as told in the four gospels.

There were also European scholars named Otto Thenius, Col. Churchill, and Fisher Howe 1871 who believed the hill to the east of the Garden Tomb fits the famous biblical Golgotha.

Just outside the old city walls, near the Damascus Gate of northern Jerusalem, there is a popular site that was known for crucifixions in the time of Jesus.

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​The naming of The Place of the Skull, such a geographical feature in such a way fits entirely with Jewish practice of the time. Other examples include Gamia, a Jewish city on the Golan which is built upon a hill like a camel's hump. 'Gamia' means 'the camel'. Also 'Susita', Aramaic for 'the horse.