Burial Cave of the Caiaphas Family

Home > Magazines > BAR > September/October 1992

The history of archaeology is filled with accidental discoveries. With all our scientific tools and methodologies, chance continues to be a major component of our success. So it was that we discovered the final resting place of the Caiaphas family, one of whose priestly members presided at the trial of Jesus. Whether we have also recovered the burial box and even the bones of the high priest Caiaphas who handed Jesus over to the Romans is another question. In a sense, everything can be 030traced to the Haas family, who funded what we call in Hebrew a tayelet (ta-YEL-et), […]

You have already read your free article for this month. Please join the BAS Library or become an All Access member of BAS to gain full access to this article and so much more.

Join the BAS Library!

Already a library member? Log in here.

Institution user? Log in with your IP address or Username

Footnotes

B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era), used by this author, are the alternate designations corresponding to B.C. and A.D. often used in scholarly literature.

See “A New Generation of Israeli Archaeologists Comes of Age,” BAR 10:03.

Nahal is the Hebrew word for a dry river bed that flows occasionally in the winter rainy months; the Arabic is wadi.

Y. Shaked assisted both in the excavation and in the administration. The surveyor was A. Hajian. D. Weiss and G. Suleimani also participated. The first report of the excavation appeared in Zvi Greenhut, “Jerusalem—East Talpiot (Peace Forest),” Archaeological News 97 (1992), pp. 71–72 (in Hebrew). For the final report, see Greenhut, “The Caiaphas Tomb in North Talpiot, Jerusalem,” Atiqot 21 (1992).

See Rachel Hachlili, “Ancient Burial Customs Preserved in Jericho Hills,” BAR 05:04.

Endnotes

Amos Kloner, “The Necropolis of Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period,” dissertation, Hebrew Univ., 1980 (in Hebrew).

L.Y. Rahmani, “Ancient Jerusalem’s Funerary Customs and Tombs,” Biblical Archaeologist (BA) 45/2 (1982), pp. 109–119.

Ronny Reich and Hillel Geva, “Burial Caves on Mount Scopus,” Atiqot (Hebrew Series) 8 (1982), pp. 52–56.

Rahmani, “Ancient Jerusalem’s Funerary Customs.”

Rahmani, “Jewish Rock Cut Tombs in Jerusalem, Atiqot (English Series) 3 (1961), pp. 107–108, fig. 7; Mishnah Shabbat 12:3.

On whorl rosettes, see Rahmani, “Jewish Rock Cut Tombs,” Pl. XIII:3.

Anthropological tests were performed by Joseph Zias and Tzipora Kahana of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

This coin was discovered by Zias during his anthropological work in the tomb.

Avraham Negev, “The Nabatean Necropolis of Mampsis (Kurnab),” Israel Exploration Journal (IEJ) 21 (1971), p. 119.

10.

Rachel Hachlili and Ann Killebrew, “Was the Coin-on-Eye Custom a Jewish Burial Practice in the Second Temple Period?” BA 46 (1983), pp. 147–153, esp. p. 150.

11.

See J.M.C. Toynbee, Death and Burial in the Roman World (London: Thames & Hudson, 1971). These cases are also explained as representing the payment to Charon; cf. D.C. Kurtz and J. Boardman, Greek Burial Customs (London: Thames & Hudson, 1971).

12.

Rahmani, “Jason’s Tomb,” IEJ 17 (1967), pp. 61–100.

13.

Kurtz and Boardman, Greek Burial Customs, p. 211.

14.

Rahmani, “Some Remarks on R. Hachlili and A. Killebrew’s ‘Jewish Funerary Customs,’” Palestine Exploration Quarterly (PEQ) 118 (1986), pp. 96–100.

15.

Hachlili and Killebrew, “Jewish Funerary Customs During the Second Temple Period, in the Light of the Excavations at the Jericho Necropolis,” PEQ 115 (1983), p. 128; Hachlili, “A Second Temple Period Jewish Necropolis in Jericho,” BA 43 (1980), p. 237.

16.

Kurtz and Boardman, Greek Burial Customs, p. 211.

17.

Rahmani, “Jewish Rock Cut Tombs,” p. 103; Hachlili and Killebrew, “Jewish Funerary Customs,” p. 127.

18.

Rahmani, “Jewish Rock Cut Tombs,” p. 103, n. 61.

19.

Kurtz and Boardman, Greek Burial Customs, p. 217; Hachlili and Killebrew, “Jewish Funerary Customs,” p. 127.