John the Baptist's head
John the Baptist was executed on the orderes of Herod Antipas. The historian Josephus states that King Herod had John killed to pre-empt a possible uprising, while the synoptic Gospels state that Herod was reacting to John's condemnation of his marriage to Herodias, the former wife of his half-brother Herod II.
The gospel of Matthew states that Herodias’ daughter Salome so delighted Herod with a dance that he promised to grant her any wish, to which, after asking her mother, she demanded the head of John the Baptist. (She must have been a curious girl!)
Quite what happened to John the Baptist’s head, has been hotly debated ever since. There are a number of different places and organisations that claim to have, or to have had it.
(1) The Knights Templar. In medieval times it was rumored that they had possession of the saint's severed head, and multiple records from their Inquisition in the early 1300s make reference to some form of head being worshiped by the Knights.
(2) The church of San Silvestro in Capite in Rome claims to have it.
(3) Amiens Cathedral in France claims to have it, after it was brought home by Wallon de Sarton from the Fourth Crusade in Constantinople.
(5) The Turks claim to have it in Antioch.
(6) The Residenz Museum in Munich, Germany, claim to have the head, as part of an accumulation of relics gathered over ten centuries, and are currently displaying both John's head as well as that of his mother!
(7) And the Muslim world claim that it is buried here, in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.
At least six of them must be wrong!
John the Baptist's head
John the Baptist was executed on the orderes of Herod Antipas. The historian Josephus states that King Herod had John killed to pre-empt a possible uprising, while the synoptic Gospels state that Herod was reacting to John's condemnation of his marriage to Herodias, the former wife of his half-brother Herod II.
The gospel of Matthew states that Herodias’ daughter Salome so delighted Herod with a dance that he promised to grant her any wish, to which, after asking her mother, she demanded the head of John the Baptist. (She must have been a curious girl!)
Quite what happened to John the Baptist’s head, has been hotly debated ever since. There are a number of different places and organisations that claim to have, or to have had it.
(1) The Knights Templar. In medieval times it was rumored that they had possession of the saint's severed head, and multiple records from their Inquisition in the early 1300s make reference to some form of head being worshiped by the Knights.
(2) The church of San Silvestro in Capite in Rome claims to have it.
(3) Amiens Cathedral in France claims to have it, after it was brought home by Wallon de Sarton from the Fourth Crusade in Constantinople.
(5) The Turks claim to have it in Antioch.
(6) The Residenz Museum in Munich, Germany, claim to have the head, as part of an accumulation of relics gathered over ten centuries, and are currently displaying both John's head as well as that of his mother!
(7) And the Muslim world claim that it is buried here, in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.
At least six of them must be wrong!