![Sealed Talpiot Tomb](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Sealed_Talpiot_Tomb.jpg)
The Talpiot Tomb (or Talpiyot Tomb) is a
rock-cut tomb
A rock-cut tomb is a burial chamber that is cut into an existing, naturally occurring rock formation, so a type of rock-cut architecture. They are usually cut into a cliff or sloping rock face, but may go downward in fairly flat ground. It was a ...
discovered in 1980 in the
East Talpiot
East Talpiot ( ''Talpiot Mizrach'') or Armon HaNetziv (ארמון הנְציב) is an Israeli settlement in southern East Jerusalem, established by Israel in 1973 on land captured in the Six-Day War and occupied since then. The international comm ...
neighborhood, five kilometers (three miles) south of the
Old City in
East Jerusalem
East Jerusalem (, ; , ) is the sector of Jerusalem that was held by Jordan during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, as opposed to the western sector of the city, West Jerusalem, which was held by Israel.
Jerusalem was envisaged as a separat ...
. It contained ten
ossuaries
An ossuary is a chest, box, 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 ...
, six inscribed with
epigraphs, including one interpreted as "''Yeshua bar Yehosef''" ("Jeshua, son of Joseph"), though the inscription is partially illegible, and its translation and interpretation is widely disputed.
The tomb also yielded various human remains and several carvings.
The Talpiot discovery was documented 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 the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
during March/April 1996. Later that year an article describing the find was published in volume 29 of ''Atiqot'', the journal of the
Israel Antiquities Authority
The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA, he, רשות העתיקות ; ar, داﺌرة الآثار, before 1990, the Israel Department of Antiquities) is an independent Israeli governmental authority responsible for enforcing the 1978 Law of ...
.
A controversial documentary film, ''
The Lost Tomb of Jesus
''The Lost Tomb of Jesus'' is a Pseudoarchaeology, pseudoarchaeological docudrama 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 C ...
'', was produced in 2007 by director
James Cameron
James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian filmmaker. A major figure in the post-New Hollywood era, he is considered one of the industry's most innovative filmmakers, regularly pushing the boundaries of cinematic capability w ...
and journalist
Simcha Jacobovici
Simcha Jacobovici (; born April 4, 1953) is an Israeli-Canadian journalist and documentary film maker.
Biography
Simcha Jacobovici's parents were Holocaust survivors from Iași, Romania. He was born April 4, 1953, in Petah Tikva, Israel. In ...
, and was released in conjunction with a book by Jacobovici and
Charles Pellegrino
Charles R. Pellegrino (born 1953) is an American writer, the author of several books related to science and archaeology, including ''Return to Sodom and Gomorrah'', ''Ghosts of the Titanic'', ''Unearthing Atlantis'', and ''Ghosts of Vesuvius.'' ...
titled ''
The Jesus Family Tomb''. The book and film make the case that the Talpiot Tomb was the burial place of
Jesus
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
of Nazareth, members of his extended family, and several other figures from the
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
—and, by inference, that Jesus had not risen from the dead as the New Testament describes. This conclusion is rejected by the overwhelming majority of
archaeologists
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
,
theologians
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the s ...
, linguistic and
biblical
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
scholars.
History
The archaeological team that excavated the tomb in 1980 determined it to be from the
Second Temple
The Second Temple (, , ), later known as Herod's Temple, was the reconstructed Temple in Jerusalem between and 70 CE. It replaced Solomon's Temple, which had been built at the same location in the United Kingdom of Israel before being inherited ...
–
Herodian
Herodian or Herodianus ( el, Ἡρωδιανός) of Syria, sometimes referred to as "Herodian of Antioch" (c. 170 – c. 240), was a minor Roman civil servant who wrote a colourful history in Greek titled ''History of the Empire from the Death o ...
period, which lasted from about 538 BCE to . 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 Kloner
Amos Kloner (February 26, 1940 – March 16, 2019) was an Israeli archaeologist and professor emeritus.
Academic career
Amos Kloner taught in the Martin Szusz Department of the Land of Israel Studies at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan. His field ...
, the area supervisor for the
Israel Department of Antiquities
The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA, he, רשות העתיקות ; ar, داﺌرة الآثار, before 1990, the Israel Department of Antiquities) is an independent Israeli governmental authority responsible for enforcing the 1978 Law of ...
(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 Gat. The permit was issued Monday, March 31, but work actually began the day before.
Although it has been said that the team was given only three days to complete the work,
Gat'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
genizah
A genizah (; , also ''geniza''; plural: ''genizot'' 'h''or ''genizahs'') is a storage area in a Jewish synagogue or cemetery designated for the temporary storage of worn-out Hebrew-language books and papers on religious topics prior to proper ceme ...
.
The tomb, which is not open to the public, is located in a courtyard on
Dov Gruner
Dov Béla Gruner ( he, דב בלה גרונר; 1912–1947) was a Hungarian-born Zionist activist in Mandatory Palestine and a member of the pre-state Jewish underground Irgun. On April 16, 1947, Gruner was executed by the British Mandatory a ...
Street, down a flight of stairs at the corner of
Olei Hagardom
Olei Hagardom ( he, עולי הגרדום, lit. "those who ascended to the gallows") refers to members of the two Jewish Revisionist pre-state underground organisations Irgun and Lehi, who were tried in British Mandate courts and sentenced to ...
and Avshalom Haviv Streets. It was reopened in 2005 by Jacobovici, without permission from the Antiques Authority, during filming of his documentary ''
The Lost Tomb of Jesus
''The Lost Tomb of Jesus'' is a Pseudoarchaeology, pseudoarchaeological docudrama 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 C ...
'', and resealed by officials shortly thereafter. In 2008, Ruth Gat, the widow of the archaeologist who supervised the original excavation, claimed that her husband kept the discovery a secret until the mid-1990s because he feared a wave of
antisemitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
would ensue if the tomb's existence was made public. However, such claims have been rejected by scholars, who pointed out that Yosef Gat died well before the inscriptions in the tomb were deciphered and translated and, in any case, he lacked the expertise to read the inscriptions.
Layout
The tomb is carved from the solid
limestone
Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...
bedrock
In geology, bedrock is solid Rock (geology), rock that lies under loose material (regolith) within the crust (geology), crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet.
Definition
Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface mater ...
.
Within are six
kokhim
A rock-cut tomb is a burial chamber that is cut into an existing, naturally occurring rock formation, so a type of rock-cut architecture. They are usually cut into a cliff or sloping rock face, but may go downward in fairly flat ground. It was a ...
, or burial shafts and two ''
arcosolia
An arcosolium, plural arcosolia, is an arched recess used as a place of entombment. The word is from Latin , "arch", and , "throne" (literally "place of state") or post-classical " sarcophagus".
Early arcosolia were carved out of the living rock ...
'', or arched shelves where a body could be laid out for entombment. The ossuaries were found within the shafts.
Artifacts
Ossuaries
Ten limestone
ossuaries
An ossuary is a chest, box, 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 ...
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 Museum
The Rockefeller Archeological Museum, formerly the Palestine Archaeological Museum ("PAM"; 1938–1967), and which before then housed The Imperial Museum of Antiquities (''Müze-i Hümayun''; 1901–1917), is an archaeology museum
A museum ...
for analysis and storage.
According to Jacobovici, Cameron, and religious studies professor
James Tabor
James Daniel Tabor (born 1946 in Texas) is a Biblical scholar and Professor of Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he has taught since 1989 and serv ...
, 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
Joseph E. Zias, most commonly cited as Joe Zias, was the Curator of Archaeology and Anthropology for the Israel Antiquities Authority from 1972 until his retirement in 1997, with responsibility for items such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, pre-historic h ...
, former
curator
A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...
of the museum, and Kloner.
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 multi-generational, 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
A
chevron
Chevron (often relating to V-shaped patterns) may refer to:
Science and technology
* Chevron (aerospace), sawtooth patterns on some jet engines
* Chevron (anatomy), a bone
* '' Eulithis testata'', a moth
* Chevron (geology), a fold in rock ...
and circle pattern is visible above the entrance of the tomb.
Media coverage
The
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
.
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.
("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 ''
devoting extensive coverage, hailing the case as being reopened. In particular Simcha Jacobovici is reported to have issued statements to the press saying the symposium has reopened the case and that he felt "totally vindicated". Jacobovici has denied making any such press release.
It was during this symposium that Ruth Gat, while accepting a posthumous award for Yosef Gat, announced: "My husband, the lead archaeologist of the East Talpiot tomb in southern Jerusalem, believed that the tomb he excavated in 1980 was, indeed, the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth and his family." However, scholars in the seminary underlined that Yosef Gath had died well before the inscriptions in the tomb were deciphered and translated and, therefore, could not have known of any alleged connection of the tomb with Jesus of Nazareth.
, who had worked with Gath in the tomb, also denied that had ever said anything like that, and accused Jacobovici of influencing Mrs Gath's opinion.
Following the media's portrayal, scholars present at the symposium accused
of misleading the media in claiming that 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" and also "that the majority of scholars in attendance—including all of the archaeologists and epigraphers who presented papers relating to the tomb—either reject the identification of the Talpiot tomb as belonging to Jesus’ family or find this claim highly speculative" and that "the probability of the Talpiot tomb belonging to Jesus’ family is virtually nil".
, 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".
) issued a statement saying that ”The evidence so far advanced falls far short of proving that the Talpiot tomb is, or even could be, the tomb of the family of Jesus of Nazareth. The identification of the ossuary of Mariamne with that of Mary Magdalene of the Gospels has no support whatever and without it the case collapses. The conference, primarily devoted to the problem of afterlife in Second Temple Judaism, was useful in airing the latest views on ancient Jewish burial practices and modern science. Apart from a handful of participants, the large majority of the assembled scholars consider the theory that the Talpiot ossuaries contained the remains of Jesus of Nazareth and his family as unlikely after the conference as it has been before. In my historical judgment, the matter is, and in the absence of substantial new evidence, should remain closed".