This article
uses bare URLs for citations. Please consider adding full citations so that the
article remains verifiable. Several templates and the Reflinks tool are
available to assist in formatting. (Reflinks documentation) (February 2012)
The Sea of
Galilee Boat also known as the "Jesus Boat" was an ancient fishing
boat from the 1st century CE (the time of Jesus Christ), discovered in 1986 on
the north-west shore of the Sea of Galilee in Israel. The remains of the boat,
27 feet (8.27 meters) long, 7.5 feet (2.3 meters) wide and with a maximum
preserved height of 4.3 feet (1.3 meters), first appeared during a drought,
when the waters of the Sea (actually a great fresh-water lake) receded.[1]
There is no evidence connecting the boat to Jesus or his disciples.
Discovery
and excavation
The remains
of the boat were found by brothers Moshe and Yuval Lufan, fishermen from
Kibbutz Ginnosar. The brothers were keen amateur archaeologists with an
interest in discovering artifacts from Palestine's past. It had always been
their hope to one day discover a boat in the Sea of Galilee, where they and
generations of their family had fished. When drought reduced the water-level of
the lake, the two brothers examined the newly exposed beach and stumbled across
the remains of the boat buried in the shore.
The brothers
reported their discovery to the authorities who sent out a team of
archaeologists to investigate. Realising that the remains of the boat were of
tremendous historical importance to Jews and Christians alike, a secret
archaeological dig followed, undertaken by members of Kibbutz Ginosar, the
Israel Antiquities Authority, and numerous volunteers. Rumour spread that the
boat was full of gold and the dig had to be guarded night and day. Excavating
the boat from the mud without damaging it, quickly enough to extract it before
the water rose again, was a difficult process which lasted 12 days and nights.
The boat was then submerged in a chemical bath for 7 years before it could be
displayed at the Yigal Allon Museum in Kibbutz Ginosar.
