Overview
In late November 1990 workmen landscaping a water park in Jerusalem's Peace Forest broke into a rock-cut burial cave with four loculi (kokhim). Zvi Greenhut of the Israel Antiquities Authority excavated it. The cave held twelve ossuaries; four had been pulled out by the workmen, two lay in situ in loculus IV and six were scattered in the chamber. Five ossuaries carried names.
Two ossuaries carry a form of the family name Qafa' / Qayafa', the first time the name had turned up in an archaeological context. One is inscribed simply 'Qafa''. The other, the most elaborately decorated box in the cave (two circles, each holding a central rosette ringed by five whorl rosettes), found undisturbed in loculus IV, is inscribed 'Yehosef bar Qayafa'' on the back of a long side and 'Yehosef bar Qafa'' on a narrow side.
The Joseph ossuary held bones of six people: two infants, a child of 2-5, a youth of 13-18, an adult woman and a man of about 60 (anthropology by Joseph Zias). Whether that man is the high priest Joseph Caiaphas of Josephus and the Gospels is the open question; Greenhut himself framed it as a question, not a finding.
What the text says (summary)
Yehosef bar Qayafa' (long side) / Yehosef bar Qafa' (narrow side) = 'Joseph son of Caiaphas'Literal rendering (this encyclopedia) of the transliteration printed by Z. Greenhut, BAR 18:5 (1992)
What the evidence shows
- Twelve ossuaries in one small family kokhim cave; five inscribed with names.
- Two inscriptions spell the name differently on the same box: QYP' (Qayafa') and QP' (Qafa').
- A second ossuary is inscribed only 'Qafa''.
- The Joseph box is the most elaborately carved in the cave (double rosette circles).
- Bones of six individuals in the Joseph box, including a male of about 60; the other 'Qafa'' box held five individuals and no elderly male.
- Bronze coin of Agrippa I (42/43 CE) in a woman's skull in the 'Miriam daughter of Simon' ossuary.
- Two iron nails were recorded in the 1990 excavation (one inside an ossuary, one on the floor of a kokh); the IAA later stated they had been misplaced (as reported in Shimron et al. 2020).
- No title (priest, high priest) appears on either Caiaphas ossuary.
Open questions
- Identity of the 60-year-old man: Greenhut (BAR 18:5, 1992) asks whether the ornate box and the name make him the high priest, but states it is 'another question'; the inscriptions carry no priestly title, and the box contained six people.
- Reading of the name: the two spellings QYP' and QP' on one box are published by Greenhut and Reich (1992). W. Horbury, 'The Caiaphas Ossuaries and Joseph Caiaphas', PEQ 126 (1994) 32-48, re-examined the inscriptions and their relation to the Josephus name; the full argument is not accessible for this entry, so its specific reading is not reported here.
- The nails: Shimron, Deutsch, Schoch and Gutkin (Archaeological Discovery 8, 2020) argue from matching sediment, flowstone and microbial signatures that two unprovenanced nails in the Tel Aviv University anthropology collection are the lost Caiaphas-tomb nails and bear crucifixion-related bone and wood; the IAA (as quoted in that paper) says the university nails have a different provenance and the tomb nails are simply misplaced.
- Z. Lewy (Archaeology & Anthropology: Open Access 4:2, 2021) reads the carved motifs of ossuary IAA 1991-465 in the same tomb as a messianic palm-scion symbol for Jesus; that is iconographic interpretation with no inscriptional support.
Since 2024
- 2020-07Shimron et al. publish petrochemical study claiming two nails in a Tel Aviv University collection are the lost nails from this tomb and were used in a crucifixion; IAA disputes the provenance. [5]
Sources
- Zvi Greenhut, 'Burial Cave of the Caiaphas Family', Biblical Archaeology Review 18:5 (Sept/Oct 1992) link excavation report
- Zvi Greenhut, 'The "Caiaphas" Tomb in North Talpiyot, Jerusalem', 'Atiqot 21 (1992); with R. Reich, 'Ossuary Inscriptions from the Caiaphas Tomb', same volume link editio princeps
- Israel Museum, Jerusalem, collection record 'Elaborate ossuary of "Joseph son of Caiaphas"' link museum record
- William Horbury, 'The "Caiaphas" Ossuaries and Joseph Caiaphas', Palestine Exploration Quarterly 126:1 (1994) 32-48, DOI 10.1179/peq.1994.126.1.32 link study
- A. E. Shimron, Y. Deutsch, W. H. Schoch, V. Gutkin, 'Petrochemistry of Sediment and Organic Materials Sampled from Ossuaries and Two Nails from the Tomb of the Family of the High Priest Caiaphas, Jerusalem', Archaeological Discovery 8 (2020) 260-287, DOI 10.4236/ad.2020.83015 link study
Corrected from the earlier edition of this page
- Old entry: 'Script: N/A'. The ossuary is inscribed in Jewish (square) Aramaic script (Greenhut 1992).
- Old entry gives the inscription only as 'Joseph son of Caiaphas'. There are two inscriptions on the box with different spellings (Yehosef bar Qayafa' and Yehosef bar Qafa'), plus a second ossuary reading 'Qafa'' (Greenhut 1992).
- Old entry: 'Dimensions: Approximately 30 cm long'. No source cited here gives 30 cm; the museum record could not be read, so dimensions are left out rather than guessed.
- Old entry: 'Date: c. 30-60 CE'. No source dates the box that narrowly; the only fixed point in the tomb is an Agrippa I coin of 42/43 CE in a different ossuary.
- Old entry says the find 'provides tangible evidence of the existence of Caiaphas' and 'confirms' a religious structure. The box carries a name, not a title; identifying its 60-year-old occupant with the high priest is a reading (framed as a question by the excavator himself).
- Old entry says Caiaphas is housed 'in the Israel Museum' with no mention that the bones were reburied on the Mount of Olives (Greenhut 1992).
Checked against new publications through 2026-09.