St. Phillip's tomb found?

[One Bad Pig]

Archaeologists working in Turkey think they've found Phillip's tomb.

The tomb of Saint Philip, one of the 12 apostles of Jesus Christ, has been discovered in Turkey, the Anatolia news agency reported Wednesday.

The discovery was made in Hierapolis at the ancient excavation site in the southwestern province of Denizli, said Francesco D’Andria, the head of the excavation team.

Archaeologists had been working for years to look for the tomb of the Biblical figure.

[One Bad Pig]

Update: It turns out that the tomb wasn't quite where they thought it was in the last article.

[Clearing an immense heap of stones, we found a] marble architrave of a ciborium with a monogram on which the name Theodosius could be read. I thought it was the name of the emperor and so that architrave made it possible to date the martyrial church between the fourth and fifth centuries. Then, little by little we found vestiges of an apse. Excavating and cleaning the floor, a great church came to light. Whereas the floor of the Martyrion was octagonal, this floor was that of a basilica, with three naves. A stupendous church with marble capitals refined decorations, crosses, friezes, plant branches, stylized palms in the niches and a central pavement with marble tesserae with colored geometrical motifs: all referable to the fifth century, namely, the age of the other church, the Martyrion. However, at the center of this wonderful construction what enthused and moved us was something disconcerting that left us breathless.

[We found a] typical Roman tomb that went back to the first century after Christ. In a certain sense, its presence could be justified by the fact that in that area, before Christians built the proto-Byzantine shrine, there was a Roman necropolis. However, examining its position carefully, we realized that that Roman tomb was at the center of the church. Hence, in the fifth century the church had been built precisely around that pagan Roman tomb, to protect it, because, evidently, that tomb was extremely important. And immediately we thought that perhaps that could be the tomb where the body of St. Philip was placed after his death.

The find was confirmed by a seal present in iconography of St. Philip which had heretofore been puzzling; it turns out to be a map of the whole complex around the tomb.

[Adrift]

Very cool find. I only saw this because I wanted to post about the recent archaeological evidence for Bethlehem. This portion of the forum deserves more activity.

[Sparko]

awesome.