Apostle’s Relics May Have Been Discovered

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30724, 13 April 1965, Page 23

Apostle’s Relics May Have Been Discovered

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) VATICAN CITY. An expert claims to have identified the relics of St Peter beneath St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.

The Vatican City newspaper “Osservatore Romano,” said Margherita Guarducci, Professor of Greek antiquities and epigraphy at Rome University, had found a hidden place containing the remains of a male, 60 to 70 years old and of robust physique—characteristics in line with what is known about St. Peter.

Analysis of earth, showed that it was identical to earth found in the apostle’s original tomb.

Discovery of the tomb was announced after excavations ordered by Pope Pius XII between 1940 and 1950, but it was empty. The original tomb was empty because at the time of the Emperor Constantine

(about 280 to 337 A.D. Peter’s bones had been transferred to a secret place, the “Osservatore Romano” said.

“This hiding place was inside a wall with inscriptions which was then closed in the monument put up by Constantine in honour of the Apostle.”

In addition to a man’s remains and some earth, the place yielded, some fragments of purple and gold cloth, “evident remains of the precious drape in which Peter’s bones were enveloped before finding asylum in the secret place,” the newspaper said.

Professor Guarducci said she identified the apostle’s relics by co-ordinating the results of her historic, archaeological and epigraphic research with reports by experts of experimental sciences.

According to a reliable hypothesis, St. Peter was martyred in the circus at Vatican Hill during Nero’s reign in 65 A.D.