This was the first time that these objects, housed in Jerusalem’s Israel Museum, had left that country. While conducting salvage digs north of Jerusalem, Dr. Vassilios Tzaferis, of the Israeli Department of Antiquities, discovered the bones of a crucified man in a stone ossuary hidden in a mortuary cave. The man’s name, Yehohanan ben Hagkol, marked in Hebrew on the ossuary, suggests that he was crucified somewhere between 4 B.C. and 70 A.D.

The stone ossuary and a copy of the nail in the crucified man’s foot were first displayed by the Israel Museum at an exhibition in Jerusalem that opened in 1994. They were exhibited at Pointe-à-Callière in the remains on the lower level of the Éperon building.