06/14/2026
Man renovating his house in Jerusalem discovers a 2,000-year-old Hebrew sarcophagus believed to contain the remains of the last Hasmonean king of Judea.
After the 1967 war, a young man named Rafael Delarosa purchased a property in Jerusalem and began renovations.
While digging, the builders noticed an unusual section of ground that seemed hollow beneath the surface. Delarosa investigated further and uncovered the entrance to a 2,000-year-old underground burial cave.
Inside were two burial chambers and an extraordinary stone sarcophagus decorated with carved flowers. It is considered one of the most magnificent sarcophagi ever discovered in Jerusalem.
An inscription found in the tomb reads:
“I am Abba, son of the priest Eleazar, son of Aaron the High Priest. I am Abba, the afflicted and persecuted one, who was born in Jerusalem and went into exile to Babylon. I brought up Mattathias, son of Judah, and buried him in the cave that I purchased by deed.”
The sarcophagus contained the remains of two individuals. Scholars have debated their identities, but the most widely accepted theory is that the Mattathias mentioned in the inscription was Antigonus II Mattathias, the last Hasmonean king of Judea.
Antigonus was defeated by Herod the Great and the Romans. He was taken to Antioch, where he was executed in 37 BC, bringing the Hasmonean dynasty to an end. All of this took place while the Second Temple still stood in Jerusalem, more than a century before its destruction by the Romans.
If this identification is correct, the inscription preserves a remarkable story: a priest named Abba brought the king’s remains back from exile and reburied them in the Land of Israel, in a tomb that he himself had purchased.
The discovery provides a rare firsthand voice from the Second Temple period and reflects themes deeply rooted in Jewish history: Jerusalem, exile, priestly lineage, land ownership, and the desire to be buried in the Land of Israel.
Image credit: Moshe Glantz (CC BY-SA 3.0)
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