Paul Calvert spoke with Dudi Mevorach from the Israel Museum, about the development of Christianity in the Holy Land.

The first one was accidentally discovered in the southern part of Jerusalem, in an area that was the acropolis, or the tomb area, of Jerusalem in the first century.

Accidentally a tractor working on a garden dropped a wheel into a cave, that was found to be the cave of the Caiaphas clan. It was the most elaborate ossuary in that tomb that is exhibited here.

Holy Land gallery in Bronfman Archaeology Wing, Israel Museum (Elie Posner)

And ossuary is a bone box into which you collected the bones of the deceased, a year after the burial. This was the practice in the Jewish society in Jerusalem and Judea in these times, to do family tombs in caves, and to bury the dead, and in a year after, to come collect the bones and cease the morning period. So therefore until today we practice a year of mourning after the death.

These ossuaries were sometimes decorated and sometimes just plain. Some of them have the names of the deceased.

It is a change from the previous practice where family members were all buried in the same cave and all their bones were gathered together in one room.

Here maybe with introduction of western philosophies, or Greek philosophies, individualism suddenly appears and each one wants to be buried separately, because who knows in the time of resurrection, maybe you want to be alone, or maybe you want to be separated from others that would have a different fate.

So the bones of one person were found in this ossuary. The inscription on it in Aramaic twice, once on the side and once on the back says, "Joseph Bar Caifa." This is Joseph Caiaphas that we know so well from the story in the gospels, and only in the gospels that arrested Jesus and handed him over to Pontius Pilate.

Paul: This is actually the bones of Caiaphas the high priest?

Dudi: This is actually the bone box of them. The bones are not here. By Israeli law bones that are discovered in excavations have to be re-buried in a religious ritual, so the Ministry of Religion takes care of that.

Paul: But when you found it, it had bones in it?

Dudi: When we found it, it had bones in it, with all the members of the skeleton.

It of course did not have a note saying "I sentenced Jesus." So we are not 100% sure. We are never 100% sure in archaeology, but it does have the full name of the high priest that we know served in the time of Jesus. From the gospels we know that he is reported to have arrested Jesus. The time is right, the scale is right, and the place is right, so these most probably are the bones of Caiaphas.

Byzantine gallery (Elie Posner)

Right next to it, not less stunning find, was found in Caesarea. Caesarea was the capital of the Roman province of Judea, on the sea shore of the Mediterranean. One of the steps in the Roman theatre that was originally built by Herod the Great, has the Latin inscription. The Latin inscription says "Dedication of a building to Tiberius the emperor, (most probably a light house in the port of Caesarea), was done by Pontius Pilate the procurator of Judea." This is the man that crucified Jesus and this is the only inscription in the world that mentions his name. He was here as a procurator for 12 years and not even his coins that he minted bear his name, so this is the only sign that he left behind with his name.

Paul: It must be a huge find.