Talpiot Tomb

An image of the chevron-adorned entrance to the Talpiot Tomb, as it was unearthed in 1980.

The Talpiot Tomb (or Talpiyot Tomb) is a tomb discovered in 1980 in the East Talpiot neighbourhood five kilometers south of the Old City of Jerusalem, Israel. It contained ten ossuaries, six of them with epigraphs, including one with the inscription that has been interpreted as "Jesus, son of Joseph", though this text is disputed.^[1] 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 England in March/April 1996.^{[citation needed]} Later in 1996, an article describing the find was published in volume 29 of Atiqot, the journal of the Israel Antiquities Authority. A controversial 2007 documentary film produced by Canadian film director James Cameron and investigative journalist Simcha Jacobovici titled The Lost Tomb of Jesus and a book written by Jacobovici, together with Charles Pellegrino, The Jesus Family Tomb promote the idea that the Talpiot Tomb was the burial place of Jesus of Nazareth, as well as several other figures from the New Testament. This claim is disputed by many archaeologists and theologians, as well as language and biblical scholars.

History

The archaeological team that excavated the tomb in 1980 determined it to be from the Second Temple 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.^[2]

Discovery and excavation

The tomb was discovered on March 28, 1980 by construction workers laying the foundations for an apartment complex,^[3] when preparatory demolition work accidentally uncovered the tomb's entrance. The site was visited the next day by Amos Kloner, the area supervisor for the Israel Department of Antiquies (IDA, now the Israel Antiquities Authority, or IAA.) Kloner drew up a set of preliminary sketches and requested a permit for a rescue excavation to be directed by Yosef Gath. The permit was issued Monday, March 31, but work actually began the day before.^[3] Although it has been said that the team was only given three days to complete the work,^[4] Gath's notes indicate that the work proceeded "intermittently" until its official end on April 11, with most of the work being done on the first two days.

Construction of the apartments was completed in 1982. The children of a resident of the apartments, Tova Bracha, got into the tomb and played inside. Bracha notified the authorities, who then resealed the entrance for safety reasons.^[5] The children found a number of discarded Jewish holy texts that had recently been placed inside the tomb for disposal by ceremonial burial.

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 Israeli Antiques Authority to enter the site, an official ordered that the tomb be resealed, and it is not open to the public. It is located in a courtyard on 273 Dov Gruner Street, reached from a flight of stairs opposite the corner of Olei Hagardom and Avshalom Haviv Streets.^[6]

The concrete slab covering the tomb

Layout

The tomb is carved from the solid limestone bedrock.^[7] Within are six kokhim or burial shafts and two arcosolia, or arched shelves where a body could be laid out for entombment. The ossuaries were found within the shafts.^[3]

Artifacts

Ossuaries

Ten limestone^[7] ossuaries were found, with six of them bearing epigraphs^[2] although only four of them were recognized as such in the field.^[3] The archaeological team determined the ossuaries to be of little note, and delivered them to the Rockefeller Museum 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.^[3] This claim has been criticized by both Joe Zias, former curator of the museum, and Kloner.^[8]

Human remains

Each of the ten ossuaries contained human remains, said to be in an "advanced state of deterioration" by the Kloner.^[3] The tomb may have been multigenerational, with several generations of bones stored in each ossuary, but no record was kept of their contents^[9] and no analysis appears to have been done to determine how many individuals were represented by the bones found.^[3] In addition, three skulls were found on the floor of the tomb below the 0.5 metre fill layer,^[4] and crushed bones were found in the fill upon the arcosolia.^[3] The scattering of these bones below the fill indicated that the tomb had been disturbed in antiquity.^[9] All the bones were eventually turned over to religious authorities for burial.^[9][3]

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 Jerusalem, which appears on coins from this period.^[10] In the same way that the Nicanor gate marked the end of a pilgrimage, 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 documentary on the Talpiot Tomb in 1996 as part of its Heart of the Matter news magazine.^[4] 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."^[11]

The tomb was featured on the Today Show on February 26, 2007 where it was mentioned that the ossuaries were sent to New York.^{[citation needed]}

The Lost Tomb of Jesus and The Jesus Family Tomb

Main articles: The Lost Tomb of Jesus and The Jesus Family Tomb

The Lost Tomb of Jesus premiered on The Discovery Channel on March 4, 2007, timed to coordinate with publication of Jacobovici's book The Jesus Family Tomb.

With the help of statisticians, archaeologists, historians, DNA experts, robot-camera technicians, epigraphers and a forensic expert, Jacobovici argued that the bones of Jesus, Mary and Mary Magdalene, along with some of their relatives, were once entombed in this cave. This claim is rejected by most scholars.^[12][13]

References

External links

• Official Site for the Lost Tomb of Jesus
• James Tabor's replies to all common criticisms and alleged errors
• Discovery channel news story
• Jesus Family Tomb Believed Found
• MSNBC Newsweek story
• Family Tomb of Jesus story (Theopedia.com - conservative Christian viewpoint with MP3 resources)

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