The Caiaphas Ossuary

In November 1990, road-construction workers in the Peace Forest south of Jerusalem accidentally broke through the roof of a previously sealed 1st-century burial cave. Salvage excavation by Zvi Greenhut of the Israel Antiquities Authority recovered twelve ossuaries — limestone bone-boxes used in Jewish secondary burial during the late Second Temple period. The most ornately carved of the twelve was inscribed twice in Aramaic on its sides: "Yehosef bar Qayafa" — Joseph son of Caiaphas. Inside lay the bones of six individuals, including those of a man approximately sixty years of age. Josephus, writing in the Antiquities of the Jews, names the high priest who presided at Jesus's trial as "Joseph who was called Caiaphas" (Antiquities 18.35, 18.95). The double naming on the ossuary matches Josephus exactly. The cave is roughly two miles from the Temple Mount where Caiaphas served, in an area used for elite Jerusalem burials. The decoration of the box — six-petaled rosettes within concentric circles — is among the most elaborate known. The identification has been challenged. Émile Puech argued the inscription should read Qopa or Qufa rather than Qayafa, and the absence of the title "high priest" has been noted. Most scholars — including the original excavator and Ronny Reich, who first read the inscription — have defended the Caiaphas identification as the most plausible reading. A second ossuary inscribed with the name of a granddaughter of Caiaphas surfaced in 2011, lending support. The bones were reburied; the ossuary is on display at the Israel Museum. Sources: Zvi Greenhut, "The Caiaphas Tomb in North Talpiyot, Jerusalem," Atiqot 21 (1992); Ronny Reich, "Ossuary Inscriptions from the Caiaphas Tomb," Atiqot 21 (1992); Craig Evans, Jesus and the Ossuaries (2003); Émile Puech, "À propos des ossuaires de Caïphe," Le Monde de la Bible 80 (1993).