James Ossuary

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The James Ossuary

In October of 2002 the discovery was reported; by the Biblical Archaeology Review; of a box which is thought to be the “Bone Box” of James, Jesus’ brother was found in Israel. The box was found accidentally by Israeli construction workers. The bone box which had “Yehosef bar Qayafa” inscribed on it was sold to a private collector named Oded Golan. That information was later said to be false and the fact that no one knew about the box for a long time aroused the suspicion that it might be a forgery. Because of that the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) had 14 specialists study the box and all of them said that the writing is a forgery but now one of them said that he thinks the writing is real. The box was sent to Royal Ontario Museum of Canada to be put on display from November 15, 2002 to January 5, 2003. The box broke while it was on its way to the museum. The reason that it broke was because whoever packed it wrapped in bubble wrap and then put it into a cardboard box.

History of Bone Box Usage

First century Jews in Isreal would whenever someone died they would put the body in a tomb which was a cave that was carved out of rock. After the flesh had rotted away from the body, which would take around a year, they would take the bones of the dead person and put them in a stone box. They were carved out of limestone because its soft and easy to carve. The stone boxes were called ossuarys or bone boxes because they held bones.