The object
An ornate limestone ossuary, a box for the secondary burial of bones, decorated with carved rosettes on its front. It was one of several ossuaries in a burial cave in the Peace Forest, south of Jerusalem’s Old City, found in 1990 during construction work. The cave was a family tomb, and the archaeological report dates its use to the first century.
The inscriptions
The ossuary carries two Aramaic inscriptions. The fuller one reads:
Yehosef bar Qayafa: “Joseph son of Caiaphas”
A second, more roughly incised inscription reads Qafa.
Why it matters
The Gospels name the high priest who interrogated Jesus as Caiaphas (Matthew 26:3, 57; John 11:49; 18:13-14). Josephus independently names a “Joseph, who was called Caiaphas” as high priest from about 18 to AD 36. The ossuary attests a family of that name, wealthy enough for a decorated box, in a Jerusalem tomb of the same period.
What it establishes
A family of high-priestly rank used the name Caiaphas in Jerusalem in roughly the period the Gospels assign to the high priest of Jesus’s trial. The name was already independently attested by the Gospels and Josephus; the box gives it a physical, archaeological context.
Open questions
The inscription names a family of Caiaphas rather than a particular man, and it says nothing of the trial narratives. Whether these are the bones of the high priest himself is a question for your own discernment; the identification is widely reported, and many scholars find it persuasive.
Where it is now
The Israel Antiquities Authority published the find, and the ossuary is displayed in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.
