Traditional Site
Tomb of the Virgin Mary
TOOM of the VUR-jin MAIR-ee · Modern Kidron Valley, East Jerusalem · 31.7801° N, 35.2394° E
This rock-cut tomb and subterranean church in the Kidron Valley, at the foot of the Mount of Olives, is venerated by Byzantine-era tradition as the burial place of Mary, mother of Jesus, following her Dormition. The tradition is entirely extra-biblical — the New Testament records no account of Mary's death or burial — but the site has been a major pilgrimage destination since at least the 5th century. A long staircase descends into a crypt shared today, under a long-standing arrangement, by the Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic churches, with a Muslim prayer niche also present.
Archaeology
A small octagonal upper church was built over the tomb in the 5th century under Patriarch Juvenal; it was destroyed in the 614 CE Persian invasion. Crusaders rebuilt the church in 1130, establishing the Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary of the Valley of Jehoshaphat; Saladin demolished the upper structure in 1187, though the lower crypt survived. In 1972 Franciscan archaeologist Bellarmino Bagatti excavated the site and reported evidence of a 1st-century Jewish rock-cut cemetery beneath the later church; his findings have not been subjected to full independent peer review, so the identification of any specific chamber as Mary's actual burial site remains a matter of tradition rather than established archaeological fact.
On a modern map
Further reading
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