A Roman Temple on Top
About 100 years after Jesus died, the Roman Emperor Hadrian rebuilt Jerusalem as a Roman city. He built a temple over the area, probably to the goddess Venus.
An early church writer, Eusebius, later claimed Hadrian did this to bury the tomb and stop Christians from worshipping there. Whatever the reason, the temple stood on the site for about 200 years.
Strangely, this may have helped later on. By building over the spot, the Romans may have marked it, so local Christians could still remember where the tomb lay many years later.