Good Friday.
Whenever you look at a lot of Christian iconography, you will notice at the foot of Jesus crucified, there is generally a skull beneath the ground of the cross and blood dripping down from above.
The reason why is because ”Golgotha” means “the place of the skull” and “Calvary” from the Latin “Calvaria” means "a skull". “Calvaria” and the Greek form “Kranion,” like "cranium," are equivalents for “Golgotha.”
This raises the question whose skull is it anyway?
There are two lines of thought. There’s a long held tradition that it’s the skull of Adam that was carried to Salem (Later Jerusalem) by the priest-king of Salem named Melchizedek. It is a long standing tradition in Hebrew culture that the bones of descendants were carried and passed on to be cared for my later generations. The tradition says that Melchizedek buried the skull of Adam and later Jesus’ (who is the second Adam) blood spilled down and filled the skull of Adam, redeeming the sin that was brought into the world when he fell to the temptation of the serpent.
Another line of thought is that it was the skull of Goliath of Gath who was dressed in a coat of scales when David slee him. It’s said that David carried the giant skull to Jerusalem and buried it and that “Golgatha” is a contraction of “Goliath of Gath.” In this line of thought, the blood of Jesus spills and is a sign of the conquering of the serpent giant.
At the end of the day, I don’t really think it matters. There’s layers of deep meaning regardless. The resounding message of Good Friday is that Jesus Christ died in our place as fallen sons of Adam — redeeming us from His sin, and in doing so He crushed the head of the old serpent giant who has lead the world astray. It’s Substitutionary Atonement and Christus Victor all day long.
I was just reading Jim Jordan on this. He makes the case that Golgotha was where Goliath's skull was displayed, and that was on the Mount of Olives.