The Hebrew University Botanical Garden on Mount Scopus was founded by botanist Alexander Aig in 1931. The garden contains the largest collection of Israeli’s uncultivated plants. It was the first home of Jerusalem’s biblical zoo before it was relocated to the south of the city.

The botanical garden contains an old tomb that has been identified as the tomb of Nicanor of Alexandria, who donated one of the gates of Herod’s Temple. This Second Temple burial cave was discovered in 1902. It also contained an ossuary bearing the inscription: “The bones of Nicanor of Alexandria who made the gate.” Nicanor was a very wealthy man, who traveled to Israel by ship to donate the great bronze or copper doors to the Temple Court.

The miracle saga surrounding these doors tells us that the ship was caught up in a heavy storm. The ship’s captain decided to remove something heavy from the boat in order to save it from going down. So to Nicanor’s horror he threw the first door over board. And when he also wanted to throw the second door into the sea, Nicanor interfered saying he will go down with the door if he must. So they left it on board and when the ship arrived safely to the Holy Land’s shore, the sea had already carried the other gate to the sandy beaches… Nicanor brought the doors to Jerusalem’s temple and remained in the city until his death.

Nicanor’s ossuary that was found in the burial cave is now part of the collection of the Israel’s Antiquities Authorities. The site in the botanical garden with the burial cave has recently been renovated and redesigned by environmental sculptor Ran Morin, who also created the replicas of the ossuaries visible in the cave today. One of the burial caves’ wall is covered by the roots of one of the trees growing above the complex, giving it a beautiful and at the same time eerie feeling. The court also contains the graves of two early Zionist leaders, Leon Pinsker and Menahem Usishkin.

The tomb of Nicanor is a great location for filming and connects well with other impressive burial caves in Jerusalem, such as the Tombs of the Kings, Sanhedria Tombs or King Herod’s family tomb. The botanical garden further invites crews to conduct an interview in a beautiful setting and the Hebrew University offers two spectacular lookout points over Jerusalem for sunrise and sunset.