Caiaphas Ossuary

In November 1990, road-construction workers in the Peace Forest south of the Old City of Jerusalem accidentally broke through the roof of a sealed first-century rock-cut tomb. Israeli archaeologists recovered twelve ossuaries — limestone bone-boxes used for secondary burial in Second Temple Judaism. Two of the ossuaries carried an unusual family name. The most elaborate of them, decorated with six-petalled rosettes, bore the inscription, in Aramaic, "Yehosef bar Qayyafa" — Joseph son of Caiaphas. Inside were the bones of six people: two infants, a young child, a teenage boy, an adult woman, and a man around sixty years old. Josephus tells us that the high priest who tried Jesus is "Joseph who is called Caiaphas" (Antiquities 18.35); the New Testament gives him as Caiaphas, son-in-law of Annas (Joh.18.13). The combination of the family name, the date of the tomb, the elaborate decoration, and the age of the male remains makes it nearly certain that this is the family tomb of the high priest of the Passion narratives. The decorated ossuary is on display at the Israel Museum.