# The abba cave: Unpublished findings and a new proposal regarding abbas identity #### (2013) - Yoel Elitzur **Link**:: http://www.jstor.org/stable/43855639 **DOI**:: **Links**:: **Tags**:: #paper **Cite Key**:: [@Elitzur2013-ik] ### Abstract ``` [Prof. Y.M Grintz's hypothesis that the magnificent ossuary found together with the Aramaic inscription of Abba son of Ele c azar the priest belonged to Mattathias Antigonus, the last Hasmonaean king, received compelling scientific corroboration in a TV programme. On the programme, broadcast in December 1974, Prof. Nicu Haas, the anthropologist who analysed the bones, presented a sketch of a decapitated skull that in his view had belonged to a tall 25-year-old man, who was tortured until he lost consciousness, after which he was beheaded — a description consistent with the execution of Mattathias Antigonus, as described by Josephus and Dio Cassius. These findings, however, were not published in a recognised academic forum and were forgotten. Haas suffered a head injury a month after the broadcast and never regained consciousness. The bones, left in cardboard boxes in his office, were reexamined by Prof. Patricia Smith, who maintained that the decapitated skull had belonged to a short old woman. In light of her findings, a general consensus rejecting Grintz's hypothesis took root in the scholarly world. The current paper has three aims: 1) to provide an historical survey of the matter, including the unpublished comments made on the TV programme and to argue that Haas' conclusions are to be preferred; 2) to provide information as yet unpublished, or unpublished in scholarly forums; and 3) to advance an hypothesis that Abba the priest and his family are to be identified with a family mentioned in Josephus Flavius' Antiquities.] ``` ### Notes