"The tradition is that Mary is weeping in this church for her son, and that she falls asleep and sleeps forever here."
He weaves through traffic and gestures at another church. "But it is also tradition that she is buried here. We know in it is buried Baldwin, one of the Crusader kings." He gives his shrug. "But maybe Mary, too."
Sol and I are the only ones in the van this afternoon since the others opted to swim in the hotel pool rather than see another museum. "How long do you want to stay?"
"A couple of hours. But I can take a taxi back to the hotel."
"Naw. The museum is promised so I take you. I come back at five. If I don't come, then you get the taxi. But wait for the half hour since traffic at five is bad."
He lets me out, and I take the white stone walkway into the museum. As I go through the Christian wing I remind myself to tell Sol that the archeological evidence for crucifixions is housed here in the bones of a first century male with a nail in his heel. The nail, the size of a railroad spike, bent going in and couldn't be removed, but since no nails were driven into
the man's palms, archeologists are assuming the arms of the crucified were tied to the cross pieces.
Nearby is a collection of ossuaries.
In Biblical times, the dead were oiled, wrapped in fine linen, and laid in caves, but after the bodies decomposed, the bones were gathered, placed in ossuaries, two-foot stone boxes, for a second burial. So the body of Jesus or Mary or Joseph would have to be found in a stone ossuary rather than in a cave.
The tradition of the church neglected to tell us that.
