ABSTRACT
The victorious emperor Constantine launched a church-building program and urged Christians to visit Palestine’s holy places. In Palestine, Constantine ordered holy caves converted to holy churches. Many travelers flocking to the graves of the saints and to the Holy Land were women. Egeria reports that under Helena’s supervision, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was built by Constantine, and decorated with gold, mosaic, and precious marble. The traveler’s literary response to the Holy Land’s breathtaking topography has been called stylistically bland. On the Mount of Olives Egeria describes the holy site of the Ascension, called Imbomon, where a church would soon be built, as well as the church called Eleona, erected over the grotto where Christ taught the apostles after his Ascension. Inside Jerusalem she visits the Church of Sion, on which site the Last Supper was shared in an upper room. She elaborately describes the sanctuaries of the Holy Sepulchre on Golgotha.
