The
Talpiot Tomb (or
Talpiyot Tomb) is a
tombA tomb is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes...
discovered in 1980 in the
East TalpiotEast Talpiot is a neighborhood in southeast Jerusalem, Israel, established in 1973 in the upswing of building that followed the Six-Day War. Due to its location over the Green Line in an area designated "no man's land" in the 1949 armistice between Israel and Jordan, the international community...
neighborhood, five kilometers south of the Old City of
JerusalemJerusalem is the capital of Israel and its largest city in both population and area, with a population of 747,600 residents over an area of if disputed East Jerusalem is included...
,
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
. It contained ten
ossuariesAn ossuary is a chest, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years the skeletal remains are removed and placed in an ossuary...
, six of them with
epigraphEpigraphy is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs engraved into stone or other durable materials, or cast in metal, the science of classifying them as to cultural context and date, elucidating them and assessing what conclusions can be deduced from them...
s, including one with the inscription that has been interpreted as "Jesus, son of Joseph", though this text is disputed. The tomb also yielded various human remains and several carvings.
The Talpiot find was first published in 1994 in "Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries in the Collections of the State of Israel" numbers 701-709, and first discussed in the media in Britain during March/April 1996. Later in 1996, an article describing the find was published in volume 29 of
Atiqot, the journal of the
Israel Antiquities AuthorityThe Israel Antiquities Authority [רשות העתיקות] is an independent Israeli governmental authority responsible for enforcing the 1978 Law of Antiquities by regulating excavation and conservation, and by promoting research.The current Director-General of the IAA is Shuka Dorfmann and its offices are...
. A controversial 2007 documentary film produced by Canadian film director
James CameronJames Francis Cameron is a Canadian film director, producer and screenwriter. His writing and directing work includes The Terminator and Titanic. To date, his directorial efforts have grossed approximately US$1.1 billion domestically, unadjusted for inflation...
and investigative journalist
Simcha JacoboviciSimcha Jacobovici is an Israeli and Canadian controversial film director, producer and free-lance journalist and writer. He holds a B.A. in Philosophy from McGill University and an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Toronto. He hosted the The Naked Archaeologist on VisionTV in...
titled
The Lost Tomb of JesusThe Lost Tomb of Jesus is a documentary co-produced and first broadcast on the Discovery Channel and Vision TV in Canada on March 4, 2007 covering the discovery of the Talpiot Tomb. It was directed by Canadian documentary and film maker Simcha Jacobovici and produced by Felix Golubev and Ric Esther...
and a book written by Jacobovici, together with Charles Pellegrino,
The Jesus Family TombThe Jesus Family Tomb: The Discovery, the Investigation, and the Evidence That Could Change History is a controversial book by Simcha Jacobovici and Charles R. Pellegrino published in February 2007...
present findings that the authors believe prove that the Talpiot Tomb was the burial place of
JesusJesus of Nazareth —also known as Jesus Christ or occasionally Jesus the Christ—is the central figure of Christianity. Within most Christian denominations...
of
NazarethNazareth is the capital and largest city in the North District of Israel. Known as "the Arab capital of Israel," the population is made up predominantly of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel...
, as well as several other figures from the
New TestamentThe New Testament is the name given to the second major division of the Christian Bible, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament, both terms being associated with Supersessionism...
. This claim is disputed by many archaeologists and theologians, as well as language and
biblicalThe Bible contains the central religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. Modern Judaism generally recognizes a single set of canonical books known as the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, as it is written almost entirely in the Hebrew language, with some small portions in Aramaic...
scholars.
History
The archaeological team that excavated the tomb in 1980 determined it to be from the
Second TempleThe Second Temple was the reconstructed Temple in Jerusalem which stood between 516 BCE and 70 CE. During this time, it was the center of Jewish worship, which focused on the sacrifices known as the korbanot...
period, which lasted from about 538 B.C. to A.D. 70. Typical of the area, a tomb of this type would be assumed to have belonged to a wealthy Jewish family. About 900 similar tombs have been unearthed in the same area.
Discovery and excavation
The tomb was discovered on March 28, 1980 by construction workers laying the foundations for an apartment complex, when preparatory demolition work accidentally uncovered the tomb's entrance. The site was visited the next day by
Amos KlonerAmos Kloner is an archaeologist and associate professor in the Martin Szusz Department of the Land of Israel Studies at the Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, where he teaches Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine archaeology....
, the area supervisor for the
Israel Department of AntiquitiesThe Israel Antiquities Authority [רשות העתיקות] is an independent Israeli governmental authority responsible for enforcing the 1978 Law of Antiquities by regulating excavation and conservation, and by promoting research.The current Director-General of the IAA is Shuka Dorfmann and its offices are...
(IDA, now the Israel Antiquities Authority, or IAA.) Kloner drew up a set of preliminary sketches and requested a permit for a salvage dig to be directed by Yosef Gath. The permit was issued Monday, March 31, but work actually began the day before. Although it has been said that the team was only given three days to complete the work, Gath's notes indicate that the work proceeded "intermittently" until its official end on April 11, with most of the work completed within the first two days.
Construction of the apartment buildings was completed in 1982. The children of Tova Bracha, a local resident, managed to get into the tomb and play inside. Bracha notified the authorities, who sealed the entrance for safety reasons. The children found some discarded Jewish religious texts that had been placed in the tomb, which was being used as a
genizahA genizah is the store-room or depository in a synagogue , usually specifically for worn-out Hebrew-language books and papers on religious topics that were stored there before they could receive a proper cemetery burial, it being forbidden to throw away writings containing...
.
Jacobovici and his film crew opened the tomb again in 2005. Their footage was incorporated into the 2007 documentary
The Lost Tomb of Jesus. As Jacobovici and his crew had neglected to obtain permission from the Antiques Authority, an official ordered that the tomb be resealed. The tomb, which is not open to the public, is located in a courtyard on
Dov GrunerDov Gruner was a Jewish Zionist leader born in Kisvarda, Hungary on December 6, 1912. On April 19, 1947, he was executed by the British Mandatory authorities in Palestine for his role in the pre-state Jewish underground known as the Irgun.-Early life:...
Street, down a flight of stairs at the corner of
Olei HagardomOlei Hagardom refers to members of the pre-state Jewish underground who were tried in British Mandate courts and sentenced to death by hanging, most of them in Acre prison. There were 12 Olei Hagardom...
and Avshalom Haviv Streets.
On January 17, 2008, Ruth Gat, the widow of the archaeologist who discovered the tomb in Talpiot, claimed that Yosef Gat had kept the discovery a secret until mid-1990s because he was afraid a wave of anti-Semitism would ensue if he did so.
Layout
The tomb is carved from the solid
limestoneLimestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the mineral calcite . The deposition of limestone strata is often a by-product and indicator of biological activity in the geologic record...
bedrockIn stratigraphy, bedrock is the native consolidated rock underlying the surface of a terrestrial planet, usually the Earth. Above the bedrock is usually an area of broken and weathered unconsolidated rock in the basal subsoil...
. Within are six
kokhimKokhim is a type of tomb complex characterised by a series of long narrow shafts, in which the deceased were placed for burial, radiating from a central chamber...
, or burial shafts and two
arcosoliaArcosolium is an architectural term applied to an arched recess used as a burial place in a catacomb....
, or arched shelves where a body could be laid out for entombment. The ossuaries were found within the shafts.
Ossuaries
Ten limestone
ossuariesAn ossuary is a chest, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years the skeletal remains are removed and placed in an ossuary...
were found, with six of them bearing epigraphs although only four of them were recognized as such in the field. The archaeological team determined the ossuaries to be of little note, and delivered them to the
Rockefeller MuseumThe Rockefeller Museum, formerly the Palestine Archaeological Museum, is an archaeological museum located in East Jerusalem that houses a large collection of artifacts unearthed in the excavations conducted in Palestine beginning in the late 19th century...
for analysis and storage. According to Jacobovici, Cameron, and religious studies professor James Tabor, one of the unmarked ossuaries later disappeared when it was stored in a courtyard outside the museum. This claim has been criticized by both Joe Zias, former
curatorCurator , means manager, overseer.Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections...
of the museum, and Kloner.
The names on the Ossuaries
- Yeshua bar Yehosef
- Maria
- Yose
Jose is the English transliteration of the Hebrew and Aramaic name Yose, which is etymologically linked to Yosef or Joseph. The name was popular during the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods.*Jose ben Jochanan*Jose the Galilean...
- Yehuda bar Yeshua
- Maramene e Mara
- Matya
Human remains
Each of the ten ossuaries contained human remains, said to be in an "advanced state of deterioration" by Amos Kloner. The tomb may have been multigenerational, with several generations of bones stored in each ossuary, but no record was kept of their contents and no analysis appears to have been done to determine how many individuals were represented by the bones found. In addition, three skulls were found on the floor of the tomb below the 0.5 metre fill layer, and crushed bones were found in the fill upon the arcosolia. The scattering of these bones below the fill indicated that the tomb had been disturbed in antiquity. All the bones were eventually turned over to religious authorities for burial.
Symbols
Some of the walls have carvings on them, including several chevron symbols. A "chevron and circle" pattern is visible above the entrance of the tomb. Some believe this is a depiction of the facade of the Nicanor gate of the
Temple in JerusalemThe Temple in Jerusalem or Holy Temple , refers to a series of structures located on the Temple Mount in the old city of Jerusalem. Historically, two temples were built at this location, and a future Temple features in Jewish eschatology. According to classical Jewish belief, the Temple acts as...
, which appears on coins from this period. In the same way that the Nicanor gate marked the end of a
pilgrimageIn religion and spirituality, a pilgrimage is a long journey or search of great moral significance. Sometimes, it is a journey to a shrine of importance to a person's beliefs and faith. Members of many major religions participate in pilgrimages...
, the entrance to the tomb marked the end of a pilgrimage. The symbol over the entrance is thought to be a "Purity eye" or "Ascension eye." A circle or dot inside a triangle is the Paleo-Hebrew symbol for an eye peering through a door. In Egypt, the chevron or triangle symbolized purity or ascension.
Media coverage
The BBC first aired a
documentaryDocumentary film is a broad category of visual expressions that is based on the attempt, in one fashion or another, to "document" reality. Although "documentary film" originally referred to movies shot on film stock, it has subsequently expanded to include video and digital productions that can...
on the Talpiot Tomb in 1996 as part of its
Heart of the Matter news magazine. At that time, Amos Kloner, the first archaeologist to examine the site said the claims of a connection to Jesus did not hold up archaeologically, adding "They just want to get money for it." Others were similarly skeptical, though another of the archaeologists who discovered the tomb admitted "I'm willing to accept the possibility."
The tomb was featured on the
Today Show on February 26, 2007 where it was mentioned that the ossuaries were sent to
New YorkNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
.
2008 Princeton Symposium and Controversial Media Coverage
Following a symposium ("Third Princeton Theological Seminary Symposium on Jewish Views of the Afterlife and Burial Practices in Second Temple Judaism: Evaluating the Talpiot Tomb in Context") held in Jerusalem in January 2008, the media interest in the Talpiot tomb was reignited with most notably
TimeTime is a component of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify the motions of objects...
and
CNNCable News Network, almost always referred to by its initialism CNN, is an U.S. cable news network founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first network to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television network in the United States...
devoting extensive coverage, hailing the case as being reopened. In particular Simcha Jacobovici issued statements to the press saying the symposium has reopened the case and that he felt "totally vindicated".
Following the media's portrayal scholars present at the symposium accused
Simcha JacoboviciSimcha Jacobovici is an Israeli and Canadian controversial film director, producer and free-lance journalist and writer. He holds a B.A. in Philosophy from McGill University and an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Toronto. He hosted the The Naked Archaeologist on VisionTV in...
and
James CameronJames Francis Cameron is a Canadian film director, producer and screenwriter. His writing and directing work includes The Terminator and Titanic. To date, his directorial efforts have grossed approximately US$1.1 billion domestically, unadjusted for inflation...
for misleading the media in claiming the symposium reopened their theory as viable. Several scholars, including significantly all of the archaeologists and epigraphers, who had delivered papers at the symposium issued an open letter of complaint claiming misrepresentation, saying that Jacobovici and Cameron's claims of support from the symposium are "nothing further from the truth".
The list of scholars who signed the open letter's criticism included:
- Professor Jodi Magness, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Professor Eric M. Meyers, Duke University
- Choon-Leon Seow, Princeton Theological Seminary
- F.W. Dobbs-Allsopp, Princeton Theological Seminary
- Lee McDonald, Princeton Theological Seminary, visiting
- Rachel Hachlili, Haifa University
- Motti Aviam, University of Rochester
- Amos Kloner, Bar Ilan University
- Christopher Rollston, Emmanuel School of Religion
- Shimon Gibson, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
- Joe Zias, Science and Antiquity Group, Jerusalem
- Jonathan Price, Tel Aviv University
- C.D. Elledge, Gutavus Adolphus College
Joe Zias, Senior Curator of Archaeology/Anthropology for the Israel Antiquities Authority 1972-1997, cited a leaked memo issued from James Tabor before the symposium as proof of "outside intervention by Simcha and Tabor in order to distort the agenda and skew the proceedings in a way that was favorable to their pre-conceived plan".
Geza VermesGéza Vermes is a British scholar of Jewish Hungarian origin and writer on religious history, particularly Jewish and Christian. He is a noted authority on the Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient works in Aramaic, and on the life and religion of Jesus. Some describe him as the greatest Jesus...
issued a statement saying that the arguments for the Talpiot tomb are not "just unconvincing but insignificant". That "Discounting a handful, headed by James Tabor and Simcha Jacobovici, the maker of the documentary, The Lost Tomb of Jesus, most of the fifty or so participants shared this opinion".
Princeton Theological Seminary issued a letter following the controversy and reiterated concerns that:
"the press following the symposium gave almost the exact opposite impression (of the symposium's results), stating, instead, that the conference proceedings gave credence to the identification of the Talpiot tomb with a putative family tomb of Jesus of Nazareth. As is abundantly clear from the statements to the contrary that have been issued since the symposium by many of the participants, such representations are patently false and blatantly misrepresent the spirit and scholarly content of the deliberations."
The proceedings of the symposium will be edited by James Charlesworth and published.
A recent edition of the scientific journal
Near Eastern Archaeology (Vol. 69, Iss. 3/4, Sep-Dec 2006), published by
The American Schools of Oriental Research contains several articles concerning the Talpiot Tomb, including an overview over the controversy.
The Lost Tomb of Jesus and The Jesus Family Tomb
The Lost Tomb of Jesus premiered on The
Discovery ChannelDiscovery Channel is an American satellite and cable TV channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It provides documentary programming focused primarily on popular science, technology, and history...
on March 4, 2007, timed to coordinate with publication of Jacobovici's book
The Jesus Family Tomb.
Jacobovici argues that the bones of
JesusJesus of Nazareth —also known as Jesus Christ or occasionally Jesus the Christ—is the central figure of Christianity. Within most Christian denominations...
,
MaryMary , usually referred to by Christians as the Virgin Mary or Saint Mary, was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee, identified in the New Testament as the mother of Jesus of Nazareth. Muslims also refer to her as the Virgin Mary or Syeda Mariam which means Our Lady Mary...
and
Mary MagdaleneMary Magdalene or Mary of Magdala is described, both in the canonical New Testament and in the New Testament apocrypha, as one of the most important women in the movement of Jesus. As a follower, Mary was one of many women who accompanied Jesus and the twelve apostles during his travels...
, along with some of their relatives, were once entombed in this cave, working with
statisticianStatisticians work with theoretical and applied statistics in both the private and public sectors. The core of that work is to measure, interpret, and describe the world and human activity patterns within it...
s, archaeologists, historians,
DNADeoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms and some viruses. The main role of DNA molecules is the long-term storage of information...
experts, robot-camera technicians,
epigraphersEpigraphy is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs engraved into stone or other durable materials, or cast in metal, the science of classifying them as to cultural context and date, elucidating them and assessing what conclusions can be deduced from them...
and a forensic expert to prove his case. This claim is rejected by most biblical scholars of archaeology.
Israeli archaeologist Amos Kloner, who was among the first to examine the tomb when it was first discovered, said the names marked on the coffins were very common at the time.
"I don't accept the news that it was used by Jesus or his family," he told the BBC News website.
"The documentary filmmakers are using it to sell their film."
Further reading
- Eric M. Meyers: "The Jesus tomb controversy: an overview", Near Eastern Archaeology, Vol. 69, Iss. 3/4 (Sep-Dec 2006), pp. 116–118
The Lost Tomb of JesusThe Lost Tomb of Jesus is a documentary co-produced and first broadcast on the Discovery Channel and Vision TV in Canada on March 4, 2007 covering the discovery of the Talpiot Tomb. It was directed by Canadian documentary and film maker Simcha Jacobovici and produced by Felix Golubev and Ric Esther...
External links