Excavations at a cave thought to be the burial place of Salome, who non-canonical scripture says was the nanny of the newborn Jesus, have found more evidence that it was an important Jewish tomb and a site of Christian pilgrimage, archaeologists said.
The Book of James, which is among the earliest Christian writings called the Apocrypha, which are not included in the Bible, describes that Salome doubted the account of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. Wounded in one arm, she cradles the baby, proclaims him “a great king…born in Israel”, and is then healed.
Work to prepare the 2,000-year-old cave for public access unearthed a 350-square-metre courtyard whose stone slabs and mosaic floors are consistent with a family tomb for prominent Jews, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said.
Inscriptions – some in Arabic – and decorated oil lamps were also found, consistent with the hypothesis that the site would have served Christian pilgrims, even up to the 9th century, after the Muslim conquest of the region, said the IAA.
The site, about 35km southwest of Bethlehem, has been known for generations as Salome’s Cave.
Previous excavations have located Jewish relics “but the surprise was the adaptation of the cave into a Christian chapel”, said the IAA. “Judging by the crosses and dozens of inscriptions engraved on cave walls in the Byzantine and early Islamic periods, the chapel was dedicated to holy Salome.”
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