WORLD
Dating evidence: relics `could be of John the Baptist`
Baku, June 22 (AZERTAC). A knucklebone claimed to be of John the Baptist has been dated as first century AD by Oxford researchers. The new dating evidence supports claims that bones found under a church floor in Bulgaria may be of the leading prophet and relative of Jesus Christ as described in the Bible.
The research by the Oxford University team will be explored in a documentary `Head of John the Baptist` to be aired in the UK on National Geographic Channel on Sunday 17 June.
A team from the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit at Oxford University dated a knucklebone from the right hand. The researchers were surprised when they discovered the very early age of the remains adding, however, that dating evidence alone cannot prove the bones to be of John the Baptist.
The bones were originally discovered in 2010 by archaeologist Kazimir Popkonstantinov, excavating under an ancient church on an island in Bulgaria known as Sveti Ivan, which translates into English as St John. The knucklebone was one of six human bones, including a tooth and the face part of a cranium, found in small marble sarcophagus under the floor near the altar. Three animal bones were also inside the sarcophagus. Oxford professors Thomas Higham and Christopher Ramsey attempted to radiocarbon date four human bones, but only one of them contained a sufficient amount of collagen to be dated successfully.
Professor Higham said: `We were surprised when the radiocarbon dating produced this very early age. We had suspected that the bones may have been more recent than this, perhaps from the third or fourth centuries. However, the result from the metacarpal hand bone is clearly consistent with someone who lived in the early first century AD. Whether that person is John the Baptist is a question that we cannot yet definitely answer and probably never will.`
Former Oxford student Dr Hannes Schroeder and Professor Eske Willerslev, both from the University of Copenhagen, also reconstructed the complete mitochondrial DNA genome sequence from three of the human bones to establish that the bones were all from the same individual. Significantly, they identified a family group of genes (mtDNA haplotype) as being a group most commonly found in the Near East, which is better known as the Middle East today - the region where John the Baptist would have originated from. They also established that the bones were probably of a male individual after an analysis of the nuclear DNA from samples.