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In Jordan, a ‘stunning’ discovery under Petra’s ancient stone

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/14/world/petra-tomb-discovered-jordan.html
For anyone thinking of visitng Petra, try and allow more than a couple of hours. When we went it was for two days, going in and out each day. A lot of people just go down the entry canyon, take a look at the Treasury (the bit in Indiana Jones) and head back. But the site itself is much larger. If you are up for a decent walk there are parts that I thought were much more impressive and interesting up the hills. Some of the scenary around there is stunning.

Also, if you can do down in the evening, that's great too.

Jordan as a whole was a really interesting place to visit.

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For some reason, slow people always lie under the big boulder, shaped like mail stamps. Never over the rock.
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That ground penetrating radar really delivers but what is the stunning part?
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Not to get all Indiana Jonesy about it, but 12 skeletons? From right around year 0? And they even show a picture of a weathered, ceramic cup?

The article plays it straight, but I'm pretty sure this = Holy Grail confirmed.

The cup they show isn't dated; it just says, "An ancient ceramic item discovered at the Treasury site". It's not even clear the cup was discovered during this particular expedition, or where it was found. It could be newer or older, and need not be related to the 12 skeletons.

If the 12 apostles existed, it seems unlikely that they'd all be buried in the same place, in what may have been a "prestigious" tomb. Jesus isn't exactly described as a particularly popular figure in his time when it came to the authorities, and I would expect the 12 apostles would have died at different times, in different places, and wouldn't have been buried together.

The time range is pushing it, too: between 400 BCE and 106 CE, though that's just the roughest of estimates based on when the city was founded and when it was annexed by the Romans, not based on any inspection of the remains. It feels more likely that this tomb was built, used, and sealed up well before Jesus and the disciples/apostles supposedly lived.

Even if we assume the religious fairy tales are true, this doesn't pass the smell test: it's vanishingly unlikely that these are the remains of those men, or that any of this is related to the Holy Grail mythology.

They are not all buried in the same place. Mark is famously in Venice.

https://www.ncregister.com/blog/where-are-the-12-apostles-no...

Peter is apparently underneath the Vatican. I’m not religious but I love history - they run a tour under the current city and it’s really quite cool if you’re into that sort of thing

http://www.scavi.va/content/scavi/en/ufficio-scavi.html

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Doubting Thomas went to India:

Christianity is India's third-largest religion with about 26 million adherents, making up 2.3 percent of the population as of the 2011 census.[1] The written records of St Thomas Christians mention that Christianity was introduced to the Indian subcontinent by Thomas the Apostle, who sailed to the Malabar region (present-day Kerala) in 52 AD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_India

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The article says the skeletons date to 400-100 BC, so, no. Year 0 doesn't exist (1 BC is followed directly by AD 1), and the holy grail would have to date from AD 33 or so, because Jesus didn't die in the year of his birth.
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> And they even show a picture of a weathered, ceramic cup

A cup that looks a _lot_ like the grail prop from the film.

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Year 0? I thought Petra was much much older than that.

If year 0 is correct, these people were buried long after Petra was a bustling city then?

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Your comment made my day!
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