The man in the Gospels
The Gospels name the man who led the plot to kill Jesus:
"Then were gathered together the chief priests, and ancients of the people, into the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiphas: And they consulted together, that by subtilty they might apprehend Jesus, and put him to death."
Matthew 26:3 to 4
Caiphas is the Douay-Rheims spelling. It was Caiaphas who said, "it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people" (John 11:50). After Jesus was arrested, "they holding Jesus, led him to Caiphas, the high priest" (Matthew 26:57). He sent Jesus on to Pilate.
The find
In 1990, workers were building a park in the Peace Forest, in the south of Jerusalem, when they broke into a burial cave from the 1st century.
Inside were several stone bone boxes, called ossuaries. One was far finer than the rest, carved with rosettes, the kind of box made for an important family. Scratched on its side was a name:
"Yehosef bar Qayafa": Joseph, son of Caiaphas.
Inside were the bones of a man of about sixty.
Joseph Caiaphas
The Gospels just call him Caiaphas. But the Jewish historian Josephus, writing around AD 93, gives his full name. He records that the Roman governor appointed Joseph Caiaphas as high priest, and that he was later removed from office, around AD 36 (Antiquities 18.35 and 18.95).
Joseph Caiaphas: the name on the box.
The trial in three records
Put the pieces side by side.
And the man Caiaphas handed Jesus over to, Pontius Pilate, has his own stone too, found in 1961 at Caesarea.
Why this is a big deal
Two of the men at the centre of Jesus' trial, the high priest and the Roman governor, have both turned up in stone, carved in their own lifetimes.
These aren't characters from a story. They're men with family tombs and inscriptions. The Gospels put real people in real places, and the ground keeps proving it.
The box is on display in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.