Dominus Flevit ("The Lord weeps")

This Roman Catholic church (1955) has a dome in the shape of a tear drop, with phials on the corners, such as the women of antiquity used in order to catch and store their tears. Well into building the church, the workers discovered ancient Jewish cemeteries, dating from the 1st century BC to the 5th AD. This was something of a disappointment. It meant that a main road would probably not have come through here: Jewish priests, many of whom lived in Jericho, would have had to use the road. If it had led through the cemetery, it would have rendered them impure for service. The most likely candidate for the Palm Sunday road is today an asphalt road a bit to the north, which descends from the summit to Gethsemane, below us.