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© ISRAEL MUSEUM, JERUSALEM / BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

HOLY SHRINE. The first and grandest of the Constantinian commemorative churches, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was considerably larger than the church found in Jerusalem today, which mostly dates to the Crusader period. It consisted of an ornate, double-colonnaded basilica called the Martyrium, an inner courtyard with a rock spire in one corner that marked the site of Jesus’s crucifixion (Golgotha), and an aedicule with the traditional tomb of Jesus over which later arose the grand rotunda called the Anastasis. All three are traditional features of Roman imperial architecture. Excavations undertaken during recent renovations of the Anastasis suggest the aedicule was originally an open-air shrine that may have recalled Greco-Roman monuments built in honor of deities and ancient heroes.