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KIBBUTZ TZUBA, Israel (AP) --
Archaeologists said Monday they have excavated a cave where John the
Baptist baptized many of his followers -- basing their theory on tens
of thousands of shards from small ritual jugs, a stone used for foot
cleansing and wall carvings that tell the story of the contemporary of
Jesus.
Only few artifacts linked to New Testament figures
have ever been found in the Holy Land, and the cave is potentially a
major discovery in biblical archaeology.
"John the Baptist, who
was just a figure from the Gospels, now comes to life," British
archaeologist Shimon Gibson said during an exclusive tour of the cave
given to The Associated Press.
Some scholars said that short of
an inscription with John's name in the cave, there could never be
conclusive proof of his presence there, and that Gibson's finds are
still too incomplete to support his contentions.
John, six months
older than Jesus and a distant relative -- their mothers were kin,
according to the Bible -- was a fiery preacher with a message of
repentance and a considerable following.
Tradition says he was
born in the village of Ein Kerem, today part of Jerusalem. Just 2.5
miles (four kilometers) away, on the land of Kibbutz Tzuba, a communal
farm, the cave lies hidden in a limestone hill -- 24 meters (yards)
long, four meters deep and four meters wide.
It was carved by the
Israelites in the Iron Age, sometime between 800 and 500 B.C. It
apparently was used from the start as a ritual immersion pool,
preceding the Jewish tradition of the ritual bath.
Over the
centuries, the cave filled with mud and sediment, leaving only a tiny
opening that was hidden by trees and bushes. Yet in recent years, it
had occasional visitors -- led by Reuven Kalifon, an immigrant from
Cleveland, Ohio, and a Hebrew teacher at the kibbutz who would take his
students spelunking.
They'd crawl through the narrow slit at the
mouth of the cave, all the way to the back wall, though they'd see
nothing but soil and walls.
In December 1999, Kalifon asked his
friend Gibson to take a closer look. Gibson, who has excavated in the
Holy Land for more than 30 years, moved a few boulders near the walls,
and laid bare the crude carving of a head.
Excited by that find, Gibson organized a full-fledged excavation.
Over
the next five years, Gibson and his team, including volunteers from the
University of North Carolina at Charlotte, cleared out the layers of
soil, picking up about 250,000 shards from small jugs apparently used
in purification rituals.
The explorers laid bare 28 steps leading
to the bottom of the cave. On the right, a niche was carved into the
wall -- typical of those used in Jewish ritual baths for discarding the
clothes before immersion. Near the end of the stairs, the team
uncovered an oval stone with a foot-shaped indentation -- about a
shoesize 45 (U.S. size 11). Just above, a soapdish-like niche was
carved into the stone, apparently for ritual oil that would flow
through a small channel onto the believer's right foot.
On the
water-covered floor of the cave, stones and boulders had been moved
aside by the worshippers and a middle path had been filled with gravel,
apparently to protect those wading from stubbing their toes, said Egon
Lass, an archaeological consultant at Wheaton College, near Chicago,
Illinois, who also worked on the dig.
Crude images had been carved on the walls, near the ceiling, and Gibson said they tell the story of John's life.
One
is the figure of the man Gibson had spotted on his first visit to the
cave. The man appears to have an unruly head of hair and wears a tunic
with dots, apparently meant to suggest an animal hide. He grasps a
staff and holds up his other hand in a gesture of proclamation.
James
Tabor, a Bible scholar from the University of North Carolina, said
there is little doubt this is John himself. The Gospels say John was a
member of the Nazarites, a sect whose followers didn't cut their hair,
and that he adopted the dress of the ancient prophets, including a
garment woven of camel's hair.
On the opposite wall is a carving
of a face that could be meant to symbolize John's severed head; the
preacher had his head cut off by Herod Antipas after he dared to take
the ruler of the Holy Land to task over an illicit affair.
Other carvings include crosses, and a picture of a hand, apparently a depiction of a famous relic of John.
The
images are from the Byzantine era, apparently carved by monks who
associated the site with John, following local folklore, Gibson and
Tabor said.
Gibson, who heads the Jerusalem Archaeological Field
Unit, a private research group, said the finds, taken together with the
proximity of John's hometown, constituted strong evidence that the cave
was used by the preacher.
"All these elements are coming together
and fill in the picture of the life and times of John the Baptist,"
said Gibson, who has written a book about the dig, entitled "The Cave
of John the Baptist," to be published later this week.
Gibson
said pottery shards found in soil layers from top to bottom also show
that the site was used for water purification rituals from the time of
John through the 11the century, when the Crusaders burst onto the scene
and began a new tradition -- designating a site associated with the
baptist in a neighboring valley.
Tabor said that no one could
ever say for certain that John the Baptist used the cave. However, he
said the cave could help bring to life an important part of the New
Testament. "We actually have a geographical location near Ein Kerem now
at which water purification rites were conducted that go back to the
first century and connects them to the traditions of John the Baptist,"
he said.
Stephen Pfann, a Bible scholar and president of the
University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem, said that Gibson has provided
a sensible explanation for the unusual finds, but that exploration must
continue. "It is inviting more scholars to come in and give alternative
explanations, if they can," he said.
Gibson has provided for just
such a possibility, leaving about one third of the cave untouched to
enable colleagues to dig further in the future.
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