After a body had decomposed, its bones could be gathered into a compact container called an ossuary. Many were plain, while others carried geometric or floral decoration.
Some ossuaries bear names scratched or inscribed on their surfaces, although many do not.
Ossuary burial became especially common among Jews in Judea around the turn of the era and continued into the first century AD. Its period of popularity overlaps directly with the lifetime of Jesus and the earliest Christian movement.
An ossuary allowed a family to keep a relative's remains within a crowded family tomb while freeing a burial niche for another primary burial.
Large numbers of limestone ossuaries have been recovered from Jerusalem and other Judean tombs. Jericho also produced important examples. Decoration, inscriptions, dimensions, and placement can all be studied archaeologically.
Later Jewish texts discuss gathering bones, while archaeology provides the strongest evidence for the boxes themselves and their use.
Ossuaries are not an Old Testament burial custom. They belong to the much later Second Temple-period setting and should not be projected backward into biblical periods where they are unattested.
The Gospels never say that Jesus was placed in an ossuary. He received primary burial in a tomb. Ossuaries nevertheless belonged to the same first-century Judean funerary world.
Stone ossuaries were widely used for secondary burial among some Jewish communities in Judea during the late Second Temple period.
Ossuary use was neither universal nor a requirement of Jewish law. Geography, chronology, wealth, and family practice all affected its use.
Ossuaries provide an unusually tangible connection to first-century Jewish family life and remind us that burial could continue long after the funeral itself.