The Jesus Discovery

by James D. Tabor

  THE TALES TOMBS TELL

  Construction blasts and bulldozers build the future but sometimes also unearth the past. These Old City tombs represent a valuable cross section of Jewish life—and death—in this period. The inscribed ossuaries, with names of individuals who lived and died before, during, and after the time of Jesus, lie at the crux of our investigation and indeed are what led us to the new discoveries that this book documents. We have spent many hours working side by side, studying and photographing scores of ossuaries all over Jerusalem—in the basement of the Rockefeller Museum, at the Israel Antiquities Authority warehouse in Beth Shemesh, in the storerooms of the Israel Museum, and elsewhere. The experience of walking through row after row of tall shelves of ossuaries, literally surrounded by these silent witnesses to the people who lived and died in Jerusalem in the 1st century CE, is for us a moving one. Most of the names are of long-forgotten individuals who lived and died without leaving behind any other record. But from time to time a tomb or ossuary can be identified with an individual we know from history—in a few cases even someone mentioned in the New Testament gospels. When that happens this hazardous process of tomb violation, whether by explorers, robbers, or modern construction, offers an amazing connection to the past—and the possibility of learning something entirely new, and connecting in a more tangible way with a person whom we had known only from a written text. It is as if the two-dimensional text suddenly becomes a three-dimensional life.

  A dramatic example of such a discovery occurred on November 10, 1941. A single-chamber burial cave was found in the Kidron Valley, just southeast of the Old City of Jerusalem, by archaeologists Eleazar Sukenik and Nahman Avigad. The entrance was sealed and the cave had not been looted. Of the eleven ossuaries inside nine were inscribed, one in Hebrew/Aramaic, another bilingual, and the rest in Greek. Archaeologists were able to determine this was a tomb for a family of Jews from Cyrene, in present-day Libya. It was dated to the 1st century CE. One of the eleven ossuaries had two names inscribed: Alexandros as well as Simon with “the Cyrenian” included.12 Those names will ring a bell with many readers. Simon of Cyrene is famous for helping Jesus carry his cross to the place of execution. Many Christians commemorate his act as the fifth station of the cross. But the gospel of Mark significantly adds that this Simon was the father of “Alexander and Rufus,” naming his two sons, as if ancient readers might know them (Mark 15:21).

  Is it possible that archaeologists have stumbled upon the family tomb of Simon of Cyrene and his son Alexander, the very ones mentioned in the New Testament gospels? One might think this very possibility would be an occasion for excitement and celebration. Surely this ossuary would be on display in the Israel Museum, visited by millions of Christian tourists each year who come to see the Dead Sea Scrolls and other wonders of archaeology. But such is not the case.

  We went looking for the ossuary in 2005 and finally located it with some difficulty, in a back storage room at Hebrew University on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem, under a table. It did not appear to be of any particular interest to the curator who brought it out for us to examine. He even seemed a bit curious as to why we would have shown up with an interest in seeing it. We brought with us biblical scholar Tom Powers, who had written several articles about this intriguing ossuary but had never seen it firsthand. He had done all his work from published photos.13 We studied the bone box in great detail, photographed it, measured it, and examined it for any possible additional markings. We all felt awe in the little storage room where we were gathered that day. We had to ask ourselves, Is it possible we are standing around the ossuary that once held the bones of Alexander, Simon of Cyrene’s son, and perhaps Simon himself as well?

  3. The ossuary of Simon of Cyrene, who carried the cross, and his son, Alexander.

  Archaeology connects us to our ancient past, but there is something about a tomb and a burial that is particularly moving. It is easy to imagine Alexander the son being present that day with his father, as Jesus passed by carrying the cross. The gospels say Simon was a passerby who was coming in from the countryside for Passover. Since the festival of Passover is a family event, his sons Rufus and Alexander would have undoubtedly been with him (Mark 15:21).14 Might Alexander have been present when the Roman soldiers impressed Simon to carry the cross? Would he then have followed his father to the place of execution and have even witnessed the crucifixion of Jesus? The name Simon is fairly common among Jews of this period but the name Alexander much less so—and this Alexander, like his father, is from Cyrene. That day, standing in the storeroom at Hebrew University, we were all contemplating that spine-tingling probability and experiencing firsthand the remarkable ways ancient archaeological finds can connect us to the past.

  We have the bulldozers to thank for an even more astounding accidental discovery in November 1990. Builders working on a park in the Peace Forest, just south of the Old City, uncovered a 1st century CE burial cave with twelve ossuaries, five inscribed. Unfortunately the tomb had been looted so its contents were in disarray, but two inscribed ossuaries caught the archaeologists’ special attention—one was inscribed Yehosef bar Qafa—Joseph son of Caiaphas; the other simply Qafa—the family name Caiaphas. The archaeologists were convinced that most likely they had uncovered the ossuary of the very man before whom Jesus stood condemned in the early morning hours of the last day of his life—Joseph Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest in the time of Jesus (Matthew 26:57–67).15

  4. Simcha and Felix examining the Caiaphas ossuary in the Israel Museum.

  Although the ossuaries were elaborately decorated, it is important to note that the inscriptions themselves were scratched on the plain sides of the ossuaries in a very informal cursive script and that the tomb was quite modest for a person of such wealth and importance. Also, one of the other ossuaries, inscribed Miriam daughter of Shimon, had a coin in the skull—presumably reflecting the pagan custom of putting a coin in the mouth to pay Charon, the ferryman over the Hadean river Styx in Greek mythology. Recently Simcha has tracked down two nails likely from the Caiaphas tomb that had gone missing. One expert has identified them as crucifixion nails.16 In Greek and Jewish tradition nails used for a crucifixion carried special magical powers, so one has to wonder if two such nails, connected to the Caiaphas family, might also be connected to the execution of Jesus. Regardless of that possibility, from this tomb we learn that a person of influence and means might have a modest tomb, with very informal, even sloppily executed inscriptions on their ossuaries, and that even the family of the high priest of Israel was not immune to pagan or Greek customs.

  The discovery of these two tombs, containing the remains of these individuals mentioned specifically in the gospels, is truly extraordinary—and to think that these men were directly involved with Jesus during the last day of his life, witnessing his trial and his crucifixion. Archaeology is very much a “surprise” science, as one simply never knows what will turn up next. What one most hopes to find might never come about, but we have all learned that what one least expects can appear at any time.

  And that’s exactly what happened in the spring of 1980 and again in 1981. Two tombs—the Garden tomb and the Patio tomb—were exposed by construction blasts in East Talpiot, a neighborhood just a mile and a half south of the Old City of Jerusalem. The tombs are less than two hundred feet apart. One was blown open from the front, with its courtyard destroyed, exposing its main entrance. The roof of the other was blasted open, allowing one to drop down from the top inside the still-sealed tomb. An Israeli construction company that was building a series of condominiums in the new neighborhood exposed both tombs. Easter and Passover do not always fall together in the same week, though they did in 1980 and again in 1981, when the two tombs were uncovered.17 We believe these tombs relate directly to Jesus, his family, and to his first followers. It seems more than ironic that both were uncovered around Easter and Passover, nineteen and a half centuries after his death.18

  The Garden tomb, excavated by archaeologist
s in 1980, is located in a garden area today, between two condominium buildings. The tomb was left open, as are many ancient tombs in Jerusalem that have been excavated, but it was later covered over by the condominium owners with a concrete slab to keep children from falling in. The second tomb was examined by archaeologists in April 1981 but never excavated. This is the tomb in which we made our discoveries in June 2010. The Patio tomb has two ritual vent pipes, required by Jewish religious custom, that run up through a patio of one of the condo units built above it. According to Jewish law, tombs convey ritual impurity, so a space is maintained between the floor of any building and the ground surface above a tomb so that technically the building is not touching the tomb itself. The vents, commonly called “soul pipes,” allow the spirits of the dead to leave the tomb. Locating these two tombs again after twenty-five years was not an easy task, especially with streets, parking lots, and buildings now covering the area, but the concrete slab and the vent pipes turned out to be key indicators.

  THE 1981 DISCOVERY OF THE PATIO TOMB

  In April 1981, the Patio tomb, the site of our recent discoveries, was first uncovered. The tomb was exposed by a dynamite blast by the Solel Boneh construction company, which was preparing the area for a condominium building on what is today Dov Gruner Street in East Talpiot.19 Amos Kloner, Jerusalem district archaeologist and a Ph.D. student, went immediately to investigate the tomb on behalf of the IAA as soon as construction workers reported its discovery. Kloner was able to enter the tomb through the break in the ceiling. The tomb was twelve feet under the modern ground surface and its original entrance was closed, blocked by an ancient sealing stone. The tomb had a single central square chamber measuring 11.5 by 11.5 feet. It contained nine nicely carved gabled burial niches, three on each of three sides, each sealed with a heavy blocking stone. Four of the niches held a total of eight ossuaries. There were skeletal remains in the others.

  Kloner reports that he was only in the tomb a very short time, just a few minutes, on his initial visit when a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews arrived, determined to protect the sanctity of the tomb and especially its bones from being disturbed by the archaeologists. He only had time to quickly examine the cave before being forced to leave by their protests. He was able to carry off one smaller ossuary, decorated but not inscribed, probably that of a child, which he turned over to the authorities at the IAA’s Rockefeller Museum headquarters.20

  5. Simcha and Felix examining the child’s ossuary in the IAA storage warehouse.

  The tomb was assigned permit 1050 and Kloner left his assistants, the late Joseph Gath and Shlomo Gudovitch, to continue the investigation since he had to leave the country on a previously scheduled trip abroad.21 They were able to remove the heavy blocking stones from the various niches, briefly examine the ossuaries, and take photographs before the Orthodox returned and forced them to leave. In a subsequent publication Kloner mentions cooking pots in three different locations in the tomb.22 Only one pot made it to the IAA warehouse, where all artifacts are required to be stored as property of the state of Israel. We recently held it in our hands. It is still in perfect condition and properly tagged with the date and license number, at the IAA storage facility in Beth Shemesh.23 No one knows what happened to the other cooking pots or whether anything else might have been removed from the tomb. We can say that there are no such pots or other artifacts, other than the seven ossuaries, in the tomb today, based on our recent reinvestigation of its contents.

  6. Kloner’s original 1981 drawing of the Patio tomb and its contents.

  Kloner further reports that all the ossuaries but one were decorated and two had Greek names inscribed. The eyewitnesses we have interviewed confirm that IAA archaeologists worked at the tomb for several days, finally removing all the ossuaries from their niches, opening their heavy stone lids, and numbering the ossuaries with chalk marks. They were preparing to hoist them up with ropes through the opening in the ceiling for transport to the Rockefeller when they were stopped at the last moment by an irate group of ultra-Orthodox Jewish protesters who had returned. The positions the ossuaries occupy today in the niches are different from what is shown in the 1981 photos and on the map Kloner subsequently published, indicating that they were put back in the niches randomly, either by the archaeologists or the Orthodox religious authorities that halted the work.

  The Patio tomb was sealed on April 16 with the seven ossuaries inside, and not seen again until twenty-nine years later by our remote cameras. In mid-July 1981 the builders poured a thick concrete support pillar down into the tomb to support the condominium building they were constructing.24 The tomb was subsequently sealed off under the basement of the building, and as mentioned the construction crew installed the “ritual” vent pipes that ran up through the concrete pillar to exit on a patio on the first floor.

  7. The condominium building built over the Patio tomb, with exploration equipment in place.

  Apparently, in their haste, and under pressure from the Orthodox, the archaeologists failed to notice what we discovered in June 2010. We found the two Greek names the archaeologists mentioned but we also discovered a Greek inscription with four lines of text, plus a mysterious image. The image offers a key to interpreting both of the Talpiot tombs and their probable relationship to Jesus. Together the inscription and the image constitute one of the most significant finds in recent archaeological history.

  THE 1980 DISCOVERY OF THE GARDEN TOMB

  Every small detail matters to an archaeologist. Getting the facts straight is critical in interpreting both these tombs. We know much less about the details of the discovery of the Patio tomb since it was never excavated and was only briefly examined when it was exposed in 1981. Even the IAA records are sparse. In the case of the Garden tomb we have a lot more information with more pieces to the puzzle, but just as many questions as we have answers. Here are the facts as we understand them.

  The Garden tomb was uncovered one year earlier by the same construction company preparing the area for a series of terraced condominium units. It is less than two hundred feet from the Patio tomb. It was exposed by a dynamite blast on Thursday morning, March 27, 1980.25 Engineer Ephraim Shohat and his supervisor immediately notified the IAA, who dispatched archaeologist Eliot Braun, who happened to live in the area, to investigate.26 The outside covered courtyard of the tomb had been completely blasted away, exposing an unusual façade with a chevron and a circle, carved on the face of the small inner entrance to the tomb itself. This entrance, measuring eighteen by eighteen inches, would have normally been covered with a sealing stone but it was missing, perhaps indicating the tomb had been left open or was disturbed at some time in the past. Braun crawled inside the tomb and found that it was filled knee deep with the local terra rossa soil that had apparently washed in over the centuries, even covering the tops of the ten ossuaries, yet unseen, that were stored inside. The inside of the square tomb measured only nine by nine feet and the ceiling was about four feet above the floor, so Braun could not stand inside. It is a much more modest tomb than the Patio tomb, both in terms of size and the architecture of the niches, which are more roughly cut. The Garden tomb’s interesting façade is its most distinguishing feature.

  8. The exposed façade of the Garden tomb shortly after it was revealed.

  There were six burial niches, or kokhim, measuring six feet deep, twenty-one inches wide, and thirty-four inches high, carved into the east, north, and west sides of the tomb, two per side, with ossuaries stored in five of them.27 The tomb had two arched shelves, or arcosolia, six feet in length, carved into the north and west sides of its walls. It was on these shelves, as we have said, that corpses would be initially laid out for decomposition before the bones were collected into ossuaries a year or so following death. Archaeologists later noted that there were bone fragments on the shelves and when the two feet of terra rossa soil fill was removed, exposing the ancient floor of the tomb, they found skeletal remains, including skulls, just below the two shelves. />
  District archaeologist Amos Kloner supervised the operation and he assigned IAA archaeologist Joseph Gath to carry out the excavation. Gath invited Shimon Gibson, a young archaeology student with a talent for drawing, to prepare a survey or map of the tomb. Kloner applied for the necessary license to excavate on Friday, March 28, with Gath as the license holder. The “Permit for a Salvage Dig 938” was issued on Monday, March 31, the day before Passover, but apparently, according to IAA files, Gath had begun his work with the aid of Braun and three or four construction workers on the 28th, the Friday morning after the discovery. The excavation continued, with short breaks for the Passover holiday, until Friday, April 11, two weeks later.