A 10-year-old Israeli boy out on a school trip in Jerusalem uncovered a cross medallion between 100 and 200 years old, the Israel Antiquities Authority said on Sunday.
The find was discovered earlier this month in the city’s southwestern Ein Kerem neighborhood, a picturesque venue venerated by Christians as the birthplace of John the Baptist, the state-run archaeological body said.
The announcement of the discovery was timed for release around Christmas.
“We were picking edible plants, and I was surprised to see on the slope below me a beautiful red pomegranate lying there on the ground,” schoolboy Nehorai Nir recounted. “I ran to pick it up and discovered a worm inside, so I reluctantly put it down—but on the way back up the hill I suddenly saw a colorful object shining in the dirt. I pulled it out and was immediately very excited.”
In a city layered in centuries of history, the medallion is not considered an antiquity by law, as it is “only” 100-200 years old or so, said Amit Re’em, Jerusalem District archaeologist of the Israel Antiquities Authority, who examined the object after Nir’s school alerted the archaeological body.
The golden medallion was made with a micro-mosaic technique developed in Rome in about 1800 C.E., which includes setting glass and tiny colorful precious stones placed with exceeding precision to form miniature patterns, Re’em said.
Ein Kerem
Ein Kerem is venerated by Christians because it is identified with the “town in Judah” where the New Testament places the birth of John the Baptist, and where the text says his mother, Elizabeth, while pregnant, met Jesus’s mother, Miriam.
Christian tradition holds that this meeting took place by a neighborhood well. Today there is a well in the neighborhood associated with the story.
With this background, two main churches were subsequently established in Ein Kerem—the Church of the Visitation (also known as the Abbey Church of St. John in the Woods) and the Church of Saint John the Baptist—drawing generations of pilgrims from across Europe as they made their way from the coastal port cities up to the Old City of Jerusalem, the IAA said.
The Jerusalem neighborhood is now home to one of Israel’s top hospitals, Hadassah Medical Center, on a nearby hilltop, and also contains a two-thousand-year-old Jewish ritual pool or mikve in Hebrew, and ancient tombs.
“This cross is a testament to the personal story of a pilgrim who visited Ein Kerem 100–200 years ago, reflecting the centrality of the Holy Land to the three monotheistic religions,” Re’em said. “People were willing to cross deserts, mountains and seas, often over the course of years, just to touch the soil where it all began.”
He speculated that the cross may have arrived with a pilgrim from Europe and fallen during his or her journey in the Land of Israel, or might have been purchased in Jerusalem.
“This exciting find in the very month that Christians celebrate Christmas puts the spotlight on Ein Karem as a central place of Christian pilgrimage in the Land of Israel,” said Eli Escusido, director of the Israel Antiquities Authority. “Through the medium of a small but unique object, we are exposed to the story of one individual’s thrilling personal journey, which connects us to the past history of this site and to the world of the pilgrims.”