The arch that crosses the Via Dolorosa belonged to a monumental Roman gateway built when Jerusalem was refounded as Aelia Capitolina; one of its side openings is preserved inside the church of Ecce Homo, framing the sanctuary. Beneath the convent of the Sisters of Zion, which took shape here in the nineteenth century, excavation revealed a broad expanse of massive paving stones, the Lithostrotos, grooved for drainage and marked with the incised boards of games played by Roman soldiers, and below that the Struthion pool, a rock-cut cistern still holding water under vaults. Christian tradition long associated the pavement with the trial of Jesus, an identification that later research has revised, and the programme sets out both the tradition and the archaeology. Filmed in 4K, including the underground spaces.
