 It is roofed and covers towards the southern end several natural grottoes, which were once used as sepulchres of the Jewish type, and a ditch is hollowed out at the northern end which is sixty-eight feet long, twenty-one feet wide and thirty feet deep.It is estimated that the bones and rubbish accumulated there form a bed from ten to fifteen feet thick.Akeldama has been the property of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem since the 16th century.