The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a church built on the traditional site of Jesus’ Crucifixion and burial. According to the Bible (John 19:41–42), his tomb was close to the place of the Crucifixion, and so the church was planned to enclose the site of both the cross and the tomb. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre lies in the northwest quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. Constantine the Great first built a church on the site. It was dedicated about AD 336, burned in 614, restored by Modestus (the abbot of the monastery of Theodosius, 616–626), destroyed by the caliph al-Ḥākim bi-Amr Allāh about 1009, and restored by the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachus. In the 12th century the Crusaders carried out a general rebuilding of the church.
Tokens such as this were available for pilgrims to collect at large, religiously important sites as a keepsake. They were made from the earth available around the shrine or pilgrim site and were collected for their apotropaic properties, as well as a precious momento.
