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- THE WEEK, Page 16SOCIETYCaiaphas' Cave
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- Have archaeologists found the burial site for the priest who
- judged Jesus?
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- Construction crews in Israel often uncover artifacts that
- date to biblical times. Rarely, however, do they stumble across
- the people who inhabit the Scriptures. But workers building a
- water park south of the Old City of Jerusalem may have performed
- precisely that feat two years ago when they uncovered a burial
- cave. As reported in this week's issue of Biblical Archaeology
- Review by Zvi Greenhut, Jerusalem's chief archaeologist, the
- cave is the final resting place for the Caiaphas family, whose
- most famous member was the high priest who, according to the
- Gospels, handed Jesus over to the Romans for crucifixion.
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- Within the cave Greenhut found 12 ossuaries, or bone
- boxes, dating to the 1st century. Six of the limestone
- containers had been disturbed by grave robbers. But one of the
- intact ossuaries bore the inscription "Yehosef bar Qayafa," or
- Joseph, son of Caiaphas, and included the remains of a woman,
- a man of about 60 and four children. The outside of the ossuary
- is decorated in a rare and intricate pattern of concentric
- circles and rosettes, perhaps befitting a priest's tomb. After
- almost 2,000 years, however, it is impossible to know for sure.
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