It is an eerily familiar image: a young man with long curly hair and beard. After lying hidden for nearly two thousand years in a small niche at the back of a cave, the fine details are difficult to make out, but what is clearly evident is the crown of thorns worn on the young man’s brow.
This extraordinary picture could well be the first ever picture of Jesus, and can bee seen on one of the recently discovered 70 lead credit-card sized codices (booklets) found in a cave overlooking the Sea of Galilee.
What is even more exciting, is that if this picture is genuine, it could have been made by someone who actually knew Jesus. One of the other booklets bears the words ‘Saviour of Israel’ - one of the few phrases so far translated.
The find was only made after rain washed away the back of a Jordanian cave to reveal a previously hidden niche. Bible scholars and historians are desperate to investigate the find more closely as most of the books have not been opened or studied since they are extremely fragile due to the ravages of time.
It has also come to light that this discovery was actually made five years ago, and the codices spent time on the black market before finding their way into the hands of a Bedouin trucker Hassan Saido who refuses to sell them, but has agreed for samples to be sent to Europe for testing.
It is for this reason that debate rages over whether these booklets are genuine, with the Israeli archaeological establishment casting doubt on their authenticity. However, the country where they were originally discovered, Jordan, has announced it will "exert all efforts at every level" to get the relics repatriated.
The director of Jordan’s Department of Antiquities, Ziad al-Saad, has few doubts about the authenticity of the booklets. He is convinced they may indeed have been made by followers of Jesus in the few decades immediately following his crucifixion.
“They will really match, and perhaps be more significant than, the Dead Sea Scrolls,” he stated. “The initial information is very encouraging and it seems that we are looking at a very important and significant discovery – maybe the most important discovery in the history of archaeology.”