Image Details

Courtesy of the Jerusalem Archaeology Field unit

Graffiti images cut into the cave’s plaster walls can be interpreted as Christian iconography. According to excavators Gibson and Tabor, the 2.5-foot-high stick-figure of a man depicts John the Baptist wearing a hairy garment (indicated by the dots in the drawing) and with a staff resting against his left arm. The objects next to his skirt may be a lamb or a vessel on a tripod. Beneath the figure is a hole that Gibson and Tabor suggest once held a relic.