The “Tomb of the Shroud” which was discovered and investigated in 2000 by Shimon Gibson, Boaz Zissu, and me, with a team of our UNC Charlotte students  in the summer of 2000, continues to yield up many scientific secrets about life and death in Jerusalem in the time of Jesus. I related the basic story of the exciting discovery of this freshly robbed tomb in the Introduction to my book The Jesus Dynasty in 2006 and Shimon Gibson has recently provided a more thorough analysis in his new book, The Final Days of Jesus: The Archaeological Evidence (HarperOne, 2009). We published a preliminary report in the journal Hadashot Arkheologiyot (vol. 111: 2000, pp. 70-72, figs. 138-139) but a major monograph is planned for 2011 and various aspects of the research are beginning to appear in scientific journals. Although the burial shroud itself continues to receive great public interest (see the latest in today’s The Daily Mail), other aspects of research on this tomb are quite notable. DNA profiles were done on all the bones in the tomb, so far as we know for the first time in an ancient tomb in Jerusalem from the Herodian period. We also have the only substantial example of male hair from the period (lice free, cut reasonably short, and well groomed), and most important, the earliest case of leprosy ever found–in the Holy Land or elsewhere. The significance of the latter discovery is a major contribution to our understanding of ancient disease and has recently been published in the current issue of the Public Library of Science Journal. Yesterday’s Jerusalem Post had a nice feature update on the tomb and its secrets, highlighting the leprosy finding:

Remains in tomb near Old City show first known case of leprosy
Dec. 15, 2009

Judy Siegel-Itzkovich , THE JERUSALEM POST
DNA taken from the shrouded remains of a man discovered in a tomb next to the Old City of Jerusalem shows him to be the first human proven to have suffered from leprosy, according to Hebrew University researchers and North American and British collaborators. They published their findings in the December 16 issue of the PLoS One – the US Public Library of Science journal.

Prof. Mark Spigelman and Prof. Charles Greenblatt of the Sanford F. Kuvin Center for the Study of Infectious and Tropical Diseases at HU in Jerusalem, along with Prof. Carney Matheson and Kim Vernon of Lakehead University in Canada, Prof. Azriel Gorski of New Haven University and Dr. Helen Donoghue of University College London performed the molecular investigation. The archeological excavation was led by Prof. Shimon Gibson, Dr. Boaz Zissu and Prof. James Tabor on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

The burial cave, known as the Tomb of the Shroud, is located in the lower Hinnom Valley near the Jaffa Gate and part of a first century CE cemetery known as Akeldama, or “Field of Blood” (mentioned in the Book of Matthew 27:3-8, and Acts 1:19 in the Christian Bible). It is located adjacent to the spot where Judas is said to have committed suicide.

The tomb of the shrouded man is also located next to the tomb of Annas, the high priest (6 CE to 15 CE), who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest who betrayed Jesus to the Romans. It is thus believed that this shrouded man was either a priest or a member of the aristocracy. Gibson suggests that the view from the tomb would have looked directly toward the Second Temple.

The tomb is very unusual because it is clear that this man, whose remains are dated by radiocarbon methods to 1 CE to 50 CE, did not receive a subsequent burial. Secondary burials were common practice at the time, when the bones were removed after a year and placed in an ossuary (a bone box made of stone). In this case, however, the entrance to this part of the tomb was completely sealed with plaster. Spigelman believes this is because the man had suffered from leprosy and died of tuberculosis, as DNA of both diseases was found in his bones.

Historically, disfiguring diseases such as leprosy led to the sufferer being ostracized from their community. However, a number of indications – the location and size of the tomb, the type of textiles used as shroud wrappings, and the clean state of the hair – suggest that the shrouded individual was a fairly affluent member of Jerusalem society, and that tuberculosis and leprosy may have crossed social boundaries at that time.

This is also the first time fragments of a burial shroud have been found from the time of Jesus in Jerusalem. The shroud is very different to that of the Turin Shroud, until now assumed to be the one that was used to wrap the body of Jesus after his crucifixion. Unlike the complex weave of the Turin Shroud, this is made up of a simple two-way weave, as textile historian Dr. Orit Shamir was able to demonstrate.

Based on the assumption that this is representative of a typical burial shroud widely used at the time of Jesus, the researchers conclude that the Turin Shroud did not originate from Jesus-era Jerusalem.

The excavation also found a clump of the shrouded man’s hair, which had been ritually cut before he was buried. These are both unique discoveries because organic remains are only rarely preserved in the Jerusalem area owing to the soil’s high humidity levels.

Spigelman and Greenblatt state that the origins and development of leprosy are largely obscure. Leprosy in the Jewish Bible may well refer to skin diseases such as psoriasis. The leprosy known to us today was thought to have originated in India and brought over via bacteria to the Near East and Mediterranean countries during the Hellenistic period. The results from the First Century Tomb of the Shroud fill a vital gap in our knowledge of this disease, they said.

Furthermore, the new research has shown that molecular pathology clearly adds a new dimension to the archeological exploration of disease in ancient times and a better understanding of the evolution, geographic distribution and epidemiology of disease and social health in antiquity.

The co-infection of both leprosy and tuberculosis here and in 30 percent of DNA remains in Israel and Europe from the ancient and modern period provided evidence for the postulate that the medieval plague of leprosy was eliminated by an increased level of tuberculosis in Europe as the area urbanized.

The 12th Annual Bible and Archaeology Fest, sponsored by the Biblical Archaeology Society,  will be held in New Orleans, November 20-22, the same weekend that the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) hold their annual meetings. The program looks particularly good this year and is packed with a thick roster of speakers and fascinating topics:

Anson Rainey, Tel Aviv University
Whence Came the Israelites and Their Language?

April DeConick, Rice University
The Magical Judas: Iscariot’s Gospel and Gem

Aren Maeir, Bar Ilan University
Fleshing out the Bible at Philistine Gath: The Interface of Bible and Archaeology

Avraham Faust, Bar Ilan University
The Assyrian Peace: A Reexamination

Bart Ehrman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Early Christian Counter Forgeries

Ben Witherington III, Asbury Theological Seminary
Oral Texts and Rhetorical Contexts

Bruce Zuckerman, University of Southern California
Technology and Antiquity: The Latest on Recovering Ancient Texts and Artifacts

Craig Evans, Acadia Divinity College
Jesus and the Exorcists: What We Learn From Archaeology

Dan Schowalter, Carthage College
Architecture and Power: Excavations of a Roman Temple Site at Omrit in Northern Israel

Gloria London, National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: The Talmud Talks Trash

James Charlesworth, Princeton Theological Seminary
Should the Gospel of John be Used in Jesus Research?

James Tabor, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Media Hype, Academic Squabbles, and the James Ossuary: Getting the Facts Straight

Jane Cahill, Tell el-Hammah Archaeological Project
Banquet Q&A Panelist

Jim Hoffmeier, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Exploring David’s Strange Antics after Defeating Goliath

Leonard Greenspoon, Creighton University
Ten Common Misconceptions about Bible Translation: How I Learned to Live with—and even Love—Modern Versions of the Bible

Mark Goodacre, Duke University
Was the Gospel of Thomas Familiar with the Synoptic Gospels?

Mark Wilson, Asia Minor Research Center
In the Footsteps of Paul in Asia Minor: Are there Still Roman Roads to Follow?

Peter Flint, Trinity Western University
The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint

Sandra Richter, Asbury Theological Seminary
The Israelites and the Environment: An Ancient Code Speaks to a Current Crisis

Steve Mason, York University
The Historical Problem of the Essenes

Sean Freyne Trinity College, Dublin
The Archaeology of Roman Galilee: What we have and have not learned about Jesus the Galilean

Yosef Garfinkel, Hebrew University
*Plenary Session Speaker*
Khirbet Qeiyafa: A Fortified City in Judah from the Time of King David

You can get complete information about program times, costs, registration, and hotel accommodations at the BAR Web site:

http://www.bib-arch.org/travel-study/bible-fest-2009.asp

The BAR Bible & Archaeology Fest, the Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting, and the annual meeting of ASOR each require separate registration. For details on SBL and ASOR see these links:

http://sbl-site.org/meetings/default.aspx

http://www.asor.org/am/index.html

Back in October, 2002 when Hershel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archaeology Review revealed the existence of an ossuary that had once held the bones of “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus,” few in the media or the public knew what an ossuary was or that Jesus even had any brothers. A lot has happened since, much of it chronicled in the archives of this Blog, but the charge that the owner of the ossuary, Israeli antiquities collector Oded Golan, added the phrase “brother of Jesus” to an original that said merely “James son of Joseph” is at the center of a criminal forgery trial in Jerusalem.

The case for and against the charge of forgery is a complex one with many twists and turns, involving a who’s who of leading characters in both the academic community and world of antiquities collecting. This week the Director of the Israel Antiquities Authority, Shuka Dorfman, who had spearheaded the forgery charge in behalf of the IAA, was called to testify. For the latest see the Jerusalem Post coverage by Matthew Kalman:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1251804522111

Last week TIME ran a major story, also written by Kalman, highlighting the ways in which the physical evidence of the case for forgery, appears to have become more problematic than previously revealed since various letters in the phrase “brother of Jesus” appear to be ancient, and thus authentic:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1920720,00.html

Matthew Kalman, who reports from Jerusalem for TIME, The Chronicle of Higher Education and Channel 4 News in Israel, is the only reporter who has covered the trial from day one. He has his own Web site where all his reports are conveniently chronicled, see: http://jamesossuarytrial.blogspot.com/

There is also a useful collection of materials and documents archived at the Biblical Archaeology Society Web site: http://www.bib-arch.org/debates/antiquities-trial-00.asp

In the meantime, the consensus of many leading academics that the ossuary inscription is a forgery has been generally reflected in major media reports, such as a series of updated segments on Sixty Minutes that have aired over the past two years as well as several major magazine stories. That case, with its charge of media sensationalism, is most recently argued in a new book, Resurrecting the Brother of Jesus: The James Ossuary Controversy and the Quest for Religious Relics, edited by Ryan Bryne and Bernadette McNary-Zak (University of North Carolina Press, 2009).

Stories that appear on-line from print media that have Web pages, which includes every major media source today, have the advantage (or disadvantage) of being edited, changed, and updated instantly. The Jerusalem Post story now on-line on the Mt. Zion Excavation finds that appeared on Wednesday has been quite severely shorted and rewritten for reasons known to the editors, whether space, content, or otherwise. I thought my readers who missed it might like to see the original Jerusalem Post story that was up for a day on July 29, until it was revised over Tisha B’Av. I will paste it in below.

I also wanted to note a comment by Robert Deutsch in the feedback section following the article that I thought was quite insightful. It is no surprise that readers of the Post story immediately suggested the possibility of this text being a forgery. Anyway, here is Deutsch’s observation:

This is the most important inscription discovered this year. It appears on a fragment of a stone chalice which is well dated to the first century, before 70 CE. Many such artifacts were uncovered in supervised and clandestine excavations, always without inscriptions, and their exact use is enigmatic. The inscription may answer and resolve the riddle.
Robert Deutsch – Israel (07/30/2009 19:31)

Here is the original Jerusalem Post story:

“Rare Aramaic Inscription Found in Jerusalem”
(July 29, 2009 at posted at 16:53. Subsequently edited and shortened)

A unique ten-line Aramaic inscription on the side of a stone cup commonly used for ritual purity during Second Temple times was recently uncovered during archaeological excavations on Jerusalem’s Mount Zion, it was announced Wednesday.  Inscriptions of this kind are extremely rare and only a handful have been found in scientific excavations made within the city.

The archaeological excavations are being carried out within the Gan Sovev Homot Yerushalayim national park, close to the Zion Gate. The work is directed by Professors Shimon Gibson and James Tabor of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, with the co-ordination of Evyatar Cohen and Dr Tsvika Tsuk of the Israel Parks Authority.

The excavations follow work carried out at the site in the 1970s by Magen Broshi, when a monumental Arabic inscription from the thirteenth century was found. The inscription is due be exhibited in the new archaeological wing to be opened next year at the Israel Museum.

The new Aramaic inscription from the first century CE is currently being deciphered by a team of epigraphic experts in an effort to determine the meaning of the text, which is clear but cryptic.

The dig also produced a sequence of building remains dating back to the First and Second Temple periods through to Byzantine and Early Islamic periods.

From the Second Temple period, archaeologists uncovered a house complex with an mikve (purification pool) with a remarkably well-preserved vaulted ceiling. Inside this house were three bread ovens dating back to the year 70 CE when Titus and the Roman troops stormed the city.  Archaeologists believe that this area of the Upper City of Jerusalem served as the priestly quarter of Jerusalem during Second Temple times.

Interesting discoveries including an ornate window screen made of stone supported this claim. Ten murex shells were also found and these were used for producing the argaman dye, which was used for the coloring the priestly vestments at that time.

In addition, a large arched building with a mosaic floor (preserved to a height of three meters) from the Byzantine period was also uncovered. Archaeologists say it may be part of a building complex or street associated with the nearby Church of St Mary.

I am most pleased to report that a major headlined story on our UNC Charlotte sponsored Mt Zion archaeological excavation has just appeared in the Jerusalem Post: “Jerusalem: “Rare 2nd Temple Inscription Found”

The story is already on-line and will appear in tomorrow’s paper. You can read the full story with color photos on-line at this link:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1248277923672&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

I have already offered a preliminary report on some of the initial results of our excavation this season in the previous entry of this Blog, but until now we had not gone public with these important finds–especially the rare inscription, yet to be fully deciphered. It appears, according to several experts, that the text is purposely cryptic, with the possibilities of letters written in both directions, upside down, and maybe even backwards. It is also not entirely clear that it is Aramaic and Stephen Pfann, of the University of the Holy Land, is leaving open the possibility that it is Hebrew. He has also suggested that the text might have had meaning within a closed circle of priests, similar to texts at Qumran. We are still hopeful we can “crack it,” but it is going to take some time. Various experts are now looking at it. Gibson and I made the decision early on not to hide it under a bushel but put it out to responsible parties who can then collectively apply their expertise.

The story in the Jerusalem Post mentions other important finds as well, including a housing complex with a well preserved mikveh (ritual bath) from the 2nd Temple period, as well as a room with two ovens–also dating to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE.

You can read more about our excavation, and keep up with the latest developments, at our main Web site, which is being continually updated: http://digmountzion.com

More to come…

James Tabor