Page "Church of the Holy Sepulchre" Paragraph 84

From the archaeological excavations in the 1970s, it is clear that construction took over most of the site of the earlier temple enclosure and that the Triportico and Rotunda roughly overlapped with the temple building itself ; the excavations indicate that the temple extended at least as far back as the Aedicule, and the temple enclosure would have reached back slightly further.

Virgilio Canio Corbo, a Franciscan priest and archaeologist, who was present at the excavations, estimated from the archaeological evidence that the western retaining wall, of the temple itself, would have passed extremely close to the east side of the supposed tomb ; if the wall had been any further west any tomb would have been crushed under the weight of the wall ( which would be immediately above it ) if it had not already been destroyed when foundations for the wall were made.