Jerusalem - Garden of Gethsemane

The traditional Garden of Gethsemane is located just to the north 

(left) of the Basilica of Agony on the Mount of Olives

This photo of the Garden of Gethsemane was taken from the Temple Mount. You are looking directly toward the east. Running north/south between the Temple Mount and Gethsemane is the Kidron Valley.

Many of the olive trees in the "Garden" and on the slopes of the Mt. of Olives date back a couple of thousand years. Holy Land guides like to say that some of these trees would have been standing at the time of Christ. That is probably an exaggeration. Josephus wrote that the Romans stripped the area of trees for firewood and siege equipment when they decimated Jerusalem in 70 AD. 

In 2012, Carbon-14 dating tests were conducted on the bark of some of the trees. It dated the trees to about 1090 AD (time of the Crusades).

No one can say with 100% accuracy where the "Garden of Gethsemane" is located. There are a few generally accepted sites:

• the area just north of the Basilica of Agony
• the Gethsemane Grotto 
• Greek Orthodox Gethsemane
• The Russian Orthodox orchard, next to the Church of Mary Magdalene