The Martyrium Found 2011

In 2011, after decades of excavation at Hierapolis (modern Pamukkale, Turkey), the Italian archaeologist Francesco D’Andria announced the discovery of what he identified, cautiously, as the tomb and shrine of the Apostle Philip: a first-century Roman tomb at the center of a fifth-century church, set within the great pilgrimage complex on the hill above the city, near the long-known octagonal martyrium. This file sets out what was actually excavated — the structures, the inscriptions and bread-stamps invoking St. Philip, the pilgrimage wear — and the conditional, evidence-weighing language the excavators themselves used.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle)

The Excavation and the Announcement

The discovery did not come from nowhere. Francesco D’Andria, of the Università del Salento (Lecce), had worked at Hierapolis for some three decades and directed the mission from the year 2000, searching among other things for the lost shrine of Philip that the Byzantine and medieval sources placed in the city (D’Andria, Biblical Archaeology Review 37, no. 4, 2011). In 2011 the excavation uncovered, on the hill above Hierapolis, a previously unknown church built around an earlier tomb — and D’Andria announced that this complex, not (as long assumed) the octagonal martyrium nearby, appeared to be the actual focus of the cult of the apostle. The announcement was reported worldwide as the discovery of “the tomb of the Apostle Philip” (D’Andria, BAR 2011; Biblical Archaeology Society news coverage, 2011).

What Was Found

Several distinct findings make up the discovery, and it is worth stating them concretely.

A first-century Roman tomb. At the center of the newly excavated church the excavators found “a typical Roman tomb that went back to the first century after Christ” — a burial of the right period to be that of an apostolic-age figure, around which the later church was deliberately built (D’Andria’s own account, OrthoChristian.com English version; D’Andria, BAR 2011). The placement of a later church directly over and around an earlier tomb is the classic signature of a Christian martyr-shrine: the building exists to enclose and honor the grave.

A church around the tomb. The structure raised over the tomb was a church of the fifth century (with later phases), richly appointed — D’Andria describes marble capitals, refined decoration, crosses, and friezes — evidently a building of major importance, located only some forty meters from the octagonal martyrium higher up (D’Andria, OrthoChristian; BAR 2011; see The Tomb and the Octagon).

Evidence of pilgrimage. The marble steps of the complex were found worn down — in D’Andria’s vivid phrase, “completely consumed by the steps of thousands upon thousands of people” — the physical trace of sustained pilgrimage over centuries; and there were nail-holes and grooves indicating metal and wooden barriers set up to control and protect access to the holy site (D’Andria, OrthoChristian). This wear is among the strongest indicators that the site was, for a very long time, a major center of veneration.

Epigraphic and small-find evidence invoking Philip. Among the finds associated with the sanctuary were objects that name the apostle — including bread-stamps and seals used by pilgrims, bearing the image and the invocation of St. Philip, the kind of pilgrim eulogiae (blessing-tokens) distributed at a major shrine (D’Andria, BAR 2011; Hierapolis excavation reports). Such finds tie the complex specifically to the cult of Philip, not merely to an anonymous martyr.

The Cautious Identification

What deserves emphasis — and what the repository methodology requires be kept intact — is the conditional, evidence-weighing character of the identification as the excavators themselves framed it. D’Andria did not claim to have found the apostle’s bones; on the contrary, the tradition holds that the relics had been translated away from Hierapolis centuries before (to Constantinople, and later to Rome; see The Tomb and the Octagon), which is consistent with finding a venerated but empty tomb. The identification rests on a convergence of evidence — a first-century tomb, a great church built around it, the bread-stamps and inscriptions naming Philip, the pilgrimage wear, and the location at the very city the early sources (Polycrates, Papias) named — rather than on a single decisive proof. D’Andria’s own language is conditional: the tomb “could be” the apostle’s, “perhaps . . . the tomb,” with the supporting evidence laid out for weighing rather than asserted as certainty (D’Andria, OrthoChristian; BAR 2011). [Disputed: the identification of the first-century tomb at Hierapolis as the actual grave of the Apostle Philip is the cautious hypothesis of the excavators (D'Andria, 2011), supported by the convergence of the tomb, the church built around it, the pilgrim bread-stamps naming Philip, and the early literary tradition; it is not archaeologically proven, the relics were in any case translated away in antiquity, and the underlying textual tradition is itself entangled with the conflation of the two Philips (see Section 09).]

What the Find Does and Does Not Establish

The discovery establishes a great deal that is solid. It is now archaeologically certain that Hierapolis possessed, from the late antique period, a major pilgrimage sanctuary dedicated to the Apostle Philip — a martyrium and a tomb-church drawing thousands of pilgrims for centuries, with finds that name the apostle explicitly. This confirms, in stone, the literary tradition that Philip was venerated at Hierapolis as its apostle and martyr from an early date (see The Mission). What the find does not establish — and what the excavators did not claim — is that the first-century tomb at its heart is, beyond doubt, the actual grave of the apostle, still less that it ever held identifiable relics. The honest summary is the one the methodology asks for: a real and important sanctuary of St. Philip, an early and venerated tomb plausibly identified as his, and a careful, conditional identification that the present collection reports with the excavators’ own caution intact (METHODOLOGY §3.5).

See Also

References

  • D’Andria, Francesco. “Conversion, Crucifixion and Celebration: St. Philip’s Martyrium at Hierapolis Draws Thousands over the Centuries.” Biblical Archaeology Review 37, no. 4 (2011): 34–46. (The discovery, the tomb-church, the pilgrimage evidence, the cautious identification.)
  • D’Andria, Francesco. “How I Discovered the Tomb of the Apostle Philip.” OrthoChristian.com (English translation of D’Andria’s account). (The first-century tomb, the worn steps, the barriers, the translation of the relics.)
  • Biblical Archaeology Society. “Tomb of Apostle Philip Found” / “Apostle Philip’s Tomb Found in Turkey.” 2011. (News coverage of the announcement.)
  • Huttner, Ulrich. Early Christianity in the Lycus Valley. Leiden: Brill, 2013. (The Hierapolis sanctuary in context.)