The building identified as
the Coenaculum or the Cenacle is a small, two-storey structure
within a larger complex of buildings on the summit of Mount Zion. The
upper storey was built by the Franciscans in the 14th century to
commemorate the Last Supper. It is also identified as the "upper
room" in which the Holy Spirit descended upon the Disciples at
Pentecost (Acts 2:2-3). In Christian tradition, the area of the city
in which they were living at the time was the present Mount Zion (the
geographical name somehow having been transferred from the Temple
Mount to this hill in the southwest corner
of the city possibly through a 4th-century misreading of Micah 3:12, which seems to speak of two hills: "the Mountain of the
Lord and Zion").
The ground-floor room
beneath the Coenaculum contains a cenotaph that since the 12th
century has been known as the "tomb of King David" - even
though the recorded burial place of the king was in the "City
of David" on the Ophel Ridge (1
Kings 2:10). Beneath the level of the present floor are earlier
Crusader, Byzantine and Roman foundations. An apse behind the
cenotaph is aligned with the Temple Mount, leading to speculation
that this part of the building may have been a synagogue, or even
"the synagogue" mentioned by the Pilgrim of Bordeaux in
333.
This area of the hill became
part of the Mother Church of Holy Zion (shown in the 6th-century
mosaic Madaba Map). This basilica was destroyed by the Persians in
614. The 12th-century Crusader Monastery and Church of St. Mary were
built on the foundations of this earlier church, but in 1219 it too
was destroyed (probably in the demolition of the walls and
strongpoints around the city ordered by the Ayyubid Sultan Al-Muazzam).
The present Chapel of the Coenaculum was built by the Franciscans on their return to the city in 1335. The
ribbed vaulting of the ceiling is typical of Lusignan or Cypriot
Gothic. The sculpted mihrab, the Muslim prayer niche, was added in
1523, when the Franciscans were evicted from the building and the
room converted into a mosque.