Summary: Archaeologists have found evidence pointing to the location of the “upper room” where Jesus ate his Last Supper with the disciples.
[Jesus] sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us.” – Mark 14:13-15 (ESV)
Evidence for the “Upper Room”
The last supper Jesus ate with his disciples before being crucified is an iconic moment in the Bible. Now, 2,000 years later, archaeologists are focusing their efforts to determine its exact location. It is believed that the meeting may have occurred in the ‘upper room’ of a two-story house with a sloped red roof that still stands in the Old City of Jerusalem on Mount Zion.
The location has been documented in several pieces of art dating to at least the fourth century AD when Christians began visiting the “upper room” to honor Jesus. This last meal was when Jesus established a new covenant and told Christians to remember him though the ritual instituted that night; today called Communion or the Eucharist. Every year thousands of people still visit this “upper room,” also known as the Cenacle meaning “dining room” in Latin.
Remarkably, “the building’s lower story has been associated since the Middle Ages with the Tomb of David, the purported burial place of the Biblical King David,” according to David Christian Clausen, an adjunct lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina.
The Last Supper
The Cenacle or “upper room” on Mount Zion in Jerusalem is where two major events in the early Christian Church are commemorated: The Last Supper and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
The Gospels of Mark and Luke mention an upper room along with details of the Last Supper which happened around AD 33. Here Jesus celebrated his last Jewish Passover meal with his twelve disciples. At this gathering, Jesus predicted his imminent death and that someone in the room would betray him. During the meal, Jesus blessed the bread and wine, explaining that it stood for his body that would be broken and the blood he would shed for the forgiveness of sins.
Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat it.” They said to him, “Where will you have us prepare it?” He said to them, “Behold, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the house that he enters and tell the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ And he will show you a large upper room furnished; prepare it there.” And they went and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover. And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise, the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. But behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table. For the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!” – Luke 22:8-22 (ESV)
According to one early Christian tradition, the “upper room” was in the home of Mary the mother of John Mark, author of the Book of Mark. This house, located in an affluent neighborhood, was a meeting place for the followers of Jesus. It was also the house Peter went to after an angel of the Lord released him from prison. The account says that a maid named Rhoda was so overjoyed at recognizing Peter’s voice that she left him knocking at the outer gate while she went to tell the gathered disciples (Acts 12:12-16).
King David’s Tomb Complex
The Cenacle is near the Church of the Dormition, south of the Zion Gate in the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City. The two-story building has limestone walls and a distinctive red sloping roof. It is part of the section of the building that survived when Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70. Able to hold 120 people, the room is constructed with large, beautiful branching columns that support a vaulted ceiling. Above it is the minaret of a Muslim mosque and on the lower floor is the location of King David’s tomb complex.
Biblical texts locate the Tomb of David in the City of David, the ancient settlement overlooking the Kidron Valley (1 Kings 2:10 and Nehemiah 3:14–16). It was during the Middle Ages that the burial place of King David began to be associated with Mount Zion.
“Modern scholars generally argue that the Biblical Zion was located on the hill east of the present-day Mount Zion, on the site where the formerly Jebusite City of David stood,” writes Clausen in an article titled “Did Jesus’ Last Supper Take Place Above the Tomb of David?”
“Scholars mostly agree that Mount Zion came to be identified with the western hill only around the turn of the era, according to Clausen. “It is thus highly unlikely that the Cenacle has anything to do with the actual tomb of David.”
The Red Sloped Roof
There are intriguing clues leading to the belief that the Cenacle is the place of the Last Supper. Evidence for the theory comes from the place being mentioned in the Bible and depicted in many works of art from the 4th century onward. However, researchers haven’t been able to conduct any archaeological digs to prove the building existed during this time.
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 beautiful mosaic map was created in AD 560 as a representation of the Holy Land.
Locations on the Madaba map are named 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. The Cardo Maximus or main street of Jerusalem is shown extending horizontally across the middle with two sacred structures on the southern end (lower right side) that were identified by their red roofs.
It wasn’t until 2017 that Clausen noticed the unusual 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.
More evidence was found in a sixth century drawing from a Gospel manuscript in Italy discovered in 1846. The drawing depicts Jesus traveling through the southern gates of Jerusalem on a donkey with the prominent, red-roofed Cenacle in the background. This account is given in the Book of Matthew which tells of how Jesus entered Jerusalem, fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah.
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. – Zech 9:9 (ESV)
In 1585, another depiction of the Cenacle was found in a sculpture from a fourth-century sarcophagus showing Jesus standing before Mary Magdalene after he rose from the dead. Just behind Jesus is a building with the same slanted roof. According to the Book of John, Jesus returned to the “upper room” after his resurrection, connecting the depiction of him and Mary Magdalene to the Biblical story.
Studying with New Technology
In 2019, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) along with experts from the Institute for Modern and Contemporary Archaeological Research (INZ) in Austria and the Cyprus Archaeological Institution conducted a study of the Cenacle using laser technology and advanced photographic imaging. This made it possible to remove updated layers made over the years and reveal what the building walls looked like in the time of Jesus.
“I felt like I was in the book by Dan Brown, ‘The Da Vinci Code’,” Amit Re’em, Jerusalem district archaeologist for the IAA, told Fox News at the time. “We needed to decipher the ancient symbols.”
Re’em explained that the 3D mapping of the Cenacle and King David’s Tomb is part of an ongoing project that began in 2016. “This place is sacred to three religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam,” he said. “It’s very, very sensitive. You cannot conduct classic archaeological excavations.”
“We mapped to reach every corner of this ancient place,” penetrating the stone to “create accurate models of the space,” said Re’em, noting that the team spotted fascinating features within the room. The newly created imagery showed ‘obscure’ artwork such as the symbols of the Agnus Dei, or “Lamb of God,” on the ceiling at the apex of one of the room’s arches.
On a keystone, a carved lion symbol was also visible. “The lion was the symbol of King David,” Re’em explained. “According to the ancient scriptures, Jesus was a descendant of King David.” The Biblical meaning of these symbols may indicate the connection of the Cenacle with the Last Supper.
The Crusaders
The Cenacle has changed over the years and new research helps answer questions around various renovations. The Crusaders built a church over an earlier 4th-century Byzantine church, according to Re’em. “The Crusaders combined in their church the early remains of the Byzantine church.”
“We think that the date of the building is the second half of the 12th century AD during the time of the Crusaders,” Re’em told Fox News. “This was the second stage of a large, magnificent church built by the Crusaders on Mount Zion.”
Today, the inside of the Cenacle is relatively unadorned, but the 3D mapping project shows that this was not the case centuries ago. “This part of the Crusader church was a very unique artistic creation,” said Re’em. “Originally, all this part of the Crusader church was fully decorated with architectural symbols [so] as a Christian pilgrim, you didn’t need to speak Latin, you could ‘read’ the symbols.”
The present Gothic-arches are a restoration of a Crusader chapel built in the 12th century as part of the Church of Our Lady of Mount Zion. A slender marble column supporting a stone canopy in the south-west corner carved with pelicans is among the architectural details of the Crusader period.
Re’em, who worked closely on the project with Ilya Berkovich, a visiting scholar at INZ, said that the elaborate Gothic architecture underlines Jerusalem’s importance and its close artistic links with Western Europe. “Jerusalem was at the forefront of the medieval world at the time of the Crusades,” he said.
The Cenacle was further changed after the Turks captured Jerusalem in the 16th century. The room was then converted into a mosque in memory of the prophet David. A niche indicating the direction of Mecca called a mihrab and stained-glass windows with Arabic inscriptions still remain.
“From time to time, when we have an opportunity, we’re continuing to document other parts of the holy complex,” said Re’em. “I hope that maybe, in the future, we will have the opportunity to conduct a small-scale classical archaeological investigation.”
Conclusion
Despite the many clues along with the new data, scientists admit that more research is needed to definitively confirm the theory of this being the actual place of the Last Supper. The IAA plans to continue studying the Cenacle and other parts of the sacred complex, hoping to find archaeological evidence for this being the “upper room.”
Determining the exact location of the Last Supper is of great interest to the Christian community as well as history and archaeology buffs. This study can shed new light on one of the most important events in Christianity and provide incentive to further study of the Biblical texts and the history of ancient Jerusalem.
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TOP PHOTO: Inside the Cenacle on Mount Zion. (See The Holy Land.net, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
