11/18/2016 The Bones of St. Peter by John E. Walsh The Bones of St. Peter The First Full Account of the Search for the Apostle's Body by John Evangelist Walsh © 1982, Doubleday & Co. (all rights reserved, this material should not be copied) 1. BURIED TOMBS 2. STREET OF THE DEAD 3. BENEATH THE HIGH ALTAR 4. PETER'S GRAVE 5. THE RED WALL COMPLEX 6. STROKE OF FATE 7. THE WOODEN BOX 8. WHAT THE GRAFFITI HID 9. THE BONES EXAMINED 10. THE PETER THEORY 11. DECISION 12. THE ANCIENT SILENCE Appendices Welcome APPENDICES Floorplan The Square A. The Surviving Skeleton of St. Peter Documents B. Notes and Sources Images C. Selected Bibliography APPENDIX A Grottoes http://stpetersbasilica.info/Necropolis/JW/TheBonesofStPeter­10.htm#append 1/16 11/18/2016 The Bones of St. Peter by John E. Walsh Vatican City The Surviving Skeleton of St. Peter Colonnade Saints Floorplan #2 The following table of the bones preserved in the graffiti wall is adapted from the exhaustive study performed by Dr. Venerando Correnti on all the bones found in and around Peter's grave, as published in Guarducci, Le Reliquie Altars di Pietro, 96­103. Parts of the skeleton which are entirely absent are not listed herein, but they may be seen in Monuments the Correnti table. The term "fragment" is not meant to indicate size, only that the bone is less than entire. Related Items Anatomically, it may be said that about half of Peter's skeleton remains. By volume, the figure is nearer one third. Scavi ­ Main Scavi Map The Tomb of St Peter by Margherita Guarducci To Buy this Book www.sinagtala.com 13. Surviving parts of Peter's skeleton, shown in black. SKELETON PART BONE REMAINING SKULL: top and sides (parietal) 20 fragments, left and right http://stpetersbasilica.info/Necropolis/JW/TheBonesofStPeter­10.htm#append 2/16 11/18/2016 The Bones of St. Peter by John E. Walsh forehead (frontal) 4 fragments upper jaw (maxillary) 5 fragments lower jaw (mandible) 2 fragments, left and right teeth 1 canine TRUNK: dorsal vertebrae 12 fragments of 7 vertebrae lumbar vertebrae 3 fragments of 2 vertebrae ribs 16 fragments of 10 ribs ARMS: shoulder (clavicle) left, 1 fragment upper arm (humerus) right, 2 fragments forearm (radius) right, 3 fragments left, 1 fragment forearm (ulna) left, 5 fragments HANDS: wrist (carpus) left, 2 entire right, 1 fragment palms (metacarpals) right, 2 fragments left, 5 fragments fingers right, 2 fragments (1,4) left, 3 entire (1,4,5) ­­2 fragments (2,3) PELVIS: girdle (ileum) right, 6 fragments left, 5 fragments lower (sacrum) 2 fragments LEGS: thigh (femur) right, 11 fragments left, 8 fragments knee­cap (patella) left, entire shin (tibia) right, 3 fragments left, 4 fragments shin (fibula) right, 2 fragments FEET: (from the ankle down, all bones are entirely absent, a peculiarity for which no explanation has been offered. But see the Notes, p. 164.) APPENDIX B Notes and Sources http://stpetersbasilica.info/Necropolis/JW/TheBonesofStPeter­10.htm#append 3/16 11/18/2016 The Bones of St. Peter by John E. Walsh In these Notes I have not dwelt on matters of general and church history which are already well known, but have restricted myself to items directly concerned with the main theme, citing only those primary sources on which my narrative is based. Mingled with these citations is some additional information and discussion which may hold a degree of value or interest, and which would have been out of place in the text. The fundamental source underlying Chapters 1­6 is the Vatican's official report of the first excavations, Explorazioni, etc., (see Bibliography). Rather than cite these volumes repeatedly, I mention them only for the more pertinent sections. Titles of all sources are given in short form, and may be fully identified by a glance at the bibliography. PROLOGUE: THE ANNOUNCEMENT Pope Paul's 1968 announcement about the bones was made in the course of one of his regular Wednesday audiences in St. Peter's Basilica (the New York Times, 27 June 1968, p. 1). Apparently, it was done rather suddenly, without prior notice to any of the scientists involved. The headline in the Times read: "Pope Says Bones Found Under Altar Are Peter's." Five days later the same paper carried a follow­up story, a long article discussing the background of the discovery. Based on interviews with several of the scientists, it was an earnest effort, but its several distortions, errors, and oversights illustrate the difficulty many journalists faced in treating the complications of this subject (the New York Times, 3 July 1968, p. 2). See also Science Digest, December 1968, where another sincere attempt to unravel the confusion only made it worse ("St. Peter's Bones ­ Are They or Aren't They?"); also Time magazine and Newsweek, both for 8 July 1968, and National Geographic, December 1971, for some other less than successful efforts at grasping the facts. Inevitably, in certain portions of the Christian community there was a decidedly cool reaction to Paul's announcement, in which scientific concerns were pushed aside by other interests. The Christian Century (10 July 1968) commented editorially: "We can't get too excited about the to­do in Rome occasioned by the Pope's announcement … We make no bones about the fact that we are perverse enough ­ or Protestant enough ­ to believe that no bones, not even a saint's, are sacred. If there is a connection between bone veneration and the gospel, we have yet to find it." Even Catholic scientists were guilty on occasion of making hasty and over­casual judgments. Dr. Giovanni Judica­Cordiglia, one of Italy's leading forensic scientists, dismissed the whole mater with the remark, "The bones could be anybody's" (Science Digest, December 1968). CHAPTER ONE: BURIED TOMBS The start of the excavations and the discovery of the various sarcophagi, the Caetennius tomb and the other graves, is covered in several sections of Esplorazioni. Further detail was derived from Toynbee and Perkins, xv­ xxii, 44­51; Kirschbaum, Tombs, 30­33; and from the several articles by Respighi, Josi, Ferrua, and Kaas. Medieval accounts of the Agricola tomb, and the tomb of the gold mosaic: Kirschbaum, Tombs, 35­36; Toynbee and Perkins, 30­32. Several account of the Ostoria Chelidon sarcophagus state that the body was found embalmed and intact, clothed in purple garments, etc. (for instance, Toynbe and Perkins, 106, and Guarducci, Tomb, 68). But this is an error specifically corrected by one of those present at the opening of the sarcophagus: "The body was not embalmd. Only the bones are preserved" (Kirschbaum, Tombs, 217). The error may have arisen, strangely enough, from Josi, 4. "Mix the wine, drink deep …" Toynbee and Perkins, 58, where the whole inscription is given in English. The history of the Vatican area since Constantine, and of the two basilicas, may be had in a number of works. I have used the more recent volumes of Lees­Milne and Hollis; also Toynbee and Perkins, 195­239, and Guarducci, Tomb, 44­59. Primary sources for the excavations beneath the body of the basilica are not voluminous as to detail, and most are available only in Italian. The official report, concentrating its attention on Peter's grave and shrine and the immediately surrounding area, leaves much information about the other tombs unrecorded. Early articles by Josi, Ferrua, etc., filled this gap to some extent, but the discrepancy was at last comprehensively supplied by Jocelyn Toynbee and John Ward Perkins in their scholarly work, The Shrine of St. Peter and the Vatican Excavations, 1957. CHAPTER TWO: STREET OF THE DEAD Tombs flanking the Caetennius mausoleum: Toynbee and Perkins, 24­117, passim (the descriptions do not proceed in sequence but are grouped according to artistic and architectural categories). Also, Kirschbaum, Tombs, 27­45, and the articles by Josi, Ferrua (1941, 1942, 1952), and Belvederi. http://stpetersbasilica.info/Necropolis/JW/TheBonesofStPeter­10.htm#append 4/16 11/18/2016 The Bones of St. Peter by John E. Walsh The Valerius tomb: The cloaked figure in the central niche of this tomb is interpreted by some as representing not a member of the Valerius family, but the god Apollo Harpocrates. I have preferred the opinion expressed in Toynbee and Perkins, 85. For the sketched heads of Jesus and Peter, and he inscription in the central niche, see Guarducci, Tombs, 144­47, Kirschbaum, Tombs, 28­9, Toynbee and Perkins, 14­17, and O'Connor, 179­82. "We let the workmen … " Kirschbaum, Tombs, 34. For further detail on the interior of this tomb, see Toynbee and Perkins, 72­74. A summary listing of all the burials found in the tombs under the basilica, including names and family relationships, and in some cases occupations, is given in Toynbee and Perkins, Appendix A. Details of the terrain on which the Roman necropolis stood and the difficulties that faced Constantine's engineers: Kirschbaum, Tombs, 42­44, Toynbee and Perkins, 197­98. Pope Sylvester's part in the building of the first basilica is recorded in Liber Pontificalis, where it is expressly stated that the first suggestion for erecting a basilica over Peter's grave came from this pope. Whether this means that the whole concept was Sylvester's from the start, or that he may have responded to an offer from Constantine, is not clear. In the same section of the Liber Pontificalis occurs the reference to the bronze coffin. Nero's Circus: A principal concern of the excavators in the early phases of the work was with finding some trace of the circus or arena of Nero, whose ruins supposedly underlay the south side of the basilica.