ONCE MORE ABOUT THE “KEYS OF JERUSALEM”

Abstract

In the author’s previous article, published in the “Matsne” (2021, N1) an entrance of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (named the “Keys of Jerusalem” in a medieval Georgian source) was discussed. It was argued that the name “Keys of Jerusalem” was attributed to another entrance of the Church, different from the only one open nowadays in the southern part of the Church. The entrance discussed is nowadays a closed doorway in the western part of the Church controlled in the 14th-16th centuries by the Georgian Christian community of Jerusalem.
Because of the pandemic of Covid-19 of 2020-21, the author was not able to verify her assumption by visiting the site personally. The author visited Jerusalem in 2022, to explore the remnants of the entrance and acquire some additional information.
Despite the time elapsed since the great fire in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 1808 which ultimately led to the entrance from the western side to be sealed for more than two centuries the remnants of the alternative doorway to the Church (named as “The Arch of Virgin Mary”) are still visible. The stone frame and two pillars (allegedly there would have been four of them) had been preserved. The investigation of the pillars revealed that only one bears some information in the form of scratched inscriptions. Two letters deeply cut in stone definitely coincide with two letters of the old Georgian alphabet and are read as “s” and “ph”, most probably meaning an abbreviation of the Georgian word “saphlavi” (the tomb). A very dim icon of a cherub wearing a candle could be seen as well on the pillar.