Information about the site itself will be provided after this announcement.
Unfortunately, I have not been able to work as a tour guide as from Feb 2020
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Zahi Shaked A tour guide in Israel and his camera zahishaked@gmail.com +972-54-6905522 tel סיור עם מורה הדרך ומדריך הטיולים צחי שקד 0546905522
My name is Zahi Shaked
In 2000 I became a registered licensed tourist guide.
My dedication in life is to pass on the ancient history of the Holy Land.
Where his head (and other body parts) might be
Josephus didn’t mention where John the Baptist was buried, nor did the Bible, though the Gospel of Matthew stated that his disciples “came and took away the body and buried it, and went and told Jesus” (Matthew 14:12). From the fourth century (three centuries after these events took place), John’s burial place was traditionally believed to be at Sebastia (originally Samaria), now in Palestine.
What became of John the Baptist’s head, on the other hand, is a question that has tantalized relic seekers for centuries. “You get a thousand different traditions about where he was buried, where his head was buried, and stuff like that,” Cargill says.
According to different traditions, no fewer than four locations lay claim to the murdered saint’s head. In Damascus, Syria, the Umayyad Mosque was built in the eighth century A.D. on the site of a Christian church named for John the Baptist; his head is said to be buried in a shrine there. A skull identified as the head of John the Baptist is on display at the Church of San Silvestro in Capite in Rome, built to house artifacts from the Roman catacombs. The 13th-century cathedral in Amiens, France was built specifically to house the head of John the Baptist, which a Crusader supposedly brought back from Constantinople in 1206. And in Munich, Germany, the Residenz Museum includes John’s skull among a number of relics collected by Duke Wilhelm V of Bavaria with the Pope’s permission in the mid-16th century.
Samaria was an important city within the ancient Kingdom of Israel. It has traditionally been associated with St John the Baptist. This church, which dates from the 5th century, was believed to mark the burial site of the head of St John the Baptist. The body was buried nearby.
During the Byzantine period, Sebaste was the seat of a bishop. The city was linked with the tradition of John the Baptist, whose tomb was located in the city by popular Christian and Islamic tradition. A Byzantine church was erected on the southern slope of the city and a Crusader church was built in the centre of the present town. The Mamluk, Ottoman and present town ofSebaste, still preserving the ancient name, is located on the eastern part of the Roman city, indicating a strong element of cultural continuity.
In addition, museums and monasteries in Istanbul, Egypt and Montenegro, among other locations, claim to have other body parts belonging to John the Baptist, including his right arm and right hand (with which he baptized Jesus).
Where the legend stands now
In 2010, Bulgarian archaeologists announced that they had found a reliquary containing a number of bones in the ruins of a medieval monastery on Sveti Ivan (or “St. John,” in Bulgarian), a Black Sea island off Bulgaria’s southern coast. Because a later monastery on the island was dedicated to John the Baptist, the researchers suggested these were likely the saint’s remains, pointing to a tiny sandstone box found alongside the reliquary, inscribed in Greek: “God, save your servant Thomas. To St John. June 24.”
Following upon many years of travel around the world, which was highlighted by a very exciting emotional and soul-searching meeting with the Dalai Lama, I realized that I had a mission. To pass on the history of the Holy Land, its religions, and in particular, the birth and development of Christianity.