Moving the marble slab
In fact, the team worked on the slab for 60 hours straight, taking care not to damage any part of the burial chamber as they attempted to remove it. The team was unprepared for what they saw when they removed the slab of marble for the first time in hundreds of years.
There was a lot of debris and dirt beneath the marble that had accumulated over thousands of years. They had to put in a little more effort. It took hours of digging and sifting to clear the debris, and what they discovered beneath was a surprise.
A second unrecorded marble slab
There was another slab of marble beneath the one placed by the Franciscan monks in 1555. The team had no idea another layer of marble existed because there was no record of it. The first layer of marble was milky white, while the second was grey.
The grey colour of the marble indicated that it was very old. The surface of this marble was also cracked. But it was the inscribed cross etched in the centre of the grey marble on the surface of the stone that took the team’s breath away.
Theories about the second marble slab
The discovery of the second slab of marble prompted historians all over the world to speculate on who might have placed it. There were theories that the cross was a Crusaders’ symbol. Some speculated that the crack on the marble’s surface was caused by an attack by Arab conquerors prior to the Crusades.
There were many theories from various historians, but one thing the team agreed on. The recently discovered marble had to be at least as old as the surrounding walls. This means it could be at least 500 years old.
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