The Caiaphas Ossuary

First century AD

A decorated limestone bone box from a family tomb in southern Jerusalem, found in 1990 and inscribed “Joseph son of Caiaphas”. Many scholars identify him with the high priest before whom Jesus was tried; others question the identification.

An ossuary is a stone chest in which the bones of the dead were gathered after the body had decayed. This one comes from a rock-cut family tomb found during building work in the south of Jerusalem in 1990. It is decorated, and it bears, inscribed twice, the name “Joseph son of Caiaphas” (Yehosef bar Qafa). Another ossuary from the same tomb carries the name Qafa alone. The Israel Museum showed the decorated one in 1992–1993 under the title “Ossuary of Caiaphas - The High Priest (18-36 CE)”, and the page linked here is its notice of that exhibition, not a record of the object.

The identification rests on the name. Josephus calls the high priest of those years “Joseph, who was also called Caiaphas” (Antiquities 18.95). The inscription gives no title, however. The excavators proposed the identification and many scholars accept it; others have questioned it, pointing to the spelling of the name and the absence of a priestly title (see William Horbury, “The ‘Caiaphas’ Ossuaries and Joseph Caiaphas”, Palestine Exploration Quarterly 126, 1994, pp. 32–48). The ossuary shows that a family of this name buried its dead at Jerusalem in the first century. It says nothing about the trial of Jesus.

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