Molecular Exploration of the First-Century Tomb of the Shroud in Akeldama, Jerusalem

The Tomb of the Shroud is a first-century C. E. tomb discovered in Akeldama, Jerusalem, Israel that had been illegally entered and looted. The investigation of this tomb by an interdisciplinary team of researchers began in 2000. More than twenty stone ossuaries for collecting human bones were found, along with textiles from a burial shroud, hair and skeletal remains. The research presented here focuses on genetic analysis of the bioarchaeological remains from the tomb using mitochondrial DNA to examine familial relationships of the individuals within the tomb and molecular screening for the presence of disease. There are three mitochondrial haplotypes shared between a number of the remains analyzed suggesting a possible family tomb. There were two pathogens genetically detected within the collection of osteological samples, these were Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium leprae. The Tomb of the Shroud is one of very few examples of a preserved shrouded human burial and the only example of a plaster sealed loculus with remains genetically confirmed to have belonged to a shrouded male individual that suffered from tuberculosis and leprosy dating to the first-century C.E. This is the earliest case of leprosy with a confirmed date in which M. leprae DNA was detected

MtDNA polymorphisms and haplotype of individuals from the Tomb of the Shroud.

<p>MtDNA polymorphisms and haplotype of individuals from the Tomb of the Shroud.</p

The archaeological samples analyzed from the Tomb of the Shroud (SC) and the molecular results for each genetic target.

<p>The mitochondrial DNA amplification is represented as; 1^st mt15975F-mt16322R; 2^nd mt16190F-mt16420R; 3^rd mt1F or mt15F-mt279R; and 4^th mt155F-mt429R. a – indicates samples replicated at the Paleo-DNA Laboratory, b – indicates samples replicated at UCL (only mycobacterial results replicated), + indicates a positive result, - indicates a negative result. SC - corresponds to the Tomb of the Shroud loculus location numbers from the original tomb plan (<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0008319#pone-0008319-g001" target="_blank">Figure 1</a>), T - corresponds to Tooth, B - corresponds to Bone and F - corresponds to Textile.</p

Individual characterisation of skeletal remains and possible relatedness from the Tomb of the Shroud.

<p>Individual characterisation of skeletal remains and possible relatedness from the Tomb of the Shroud.</p

Alignment of <i>M. leprae</i> 18 kDa gene region with sequence data from SC1.

*<p>Underlined sequence denotes the primer binding region.</p><p>Aligned to the 18 kDa gene sequence from Genbank, accession number MSGANT18K.</p

Alignment of <i>M. tuberculosis</i> gene for ribosomal protein S12 with sequence data from SC1.

*<p>Underlined sequence denotes the primer binding region.</p><p>Aligned to the S12 sequence from Genbank, accession number X70995.</p

Mitochondrial DNA sequence alignment of individuals from the Tomb of the Shroud.

<p>Mitochondrial DNA sequence alignment of individuals from the Tomb of the Shroud.</p

A schematic plan of the tomb (numbers represents the niche or loculi) (Produced by SG).

<p>A schematic plan of the tomb (numbers represents the niche or loculi) (Produced by SG).</p