Chapter Ten

Inside the Tomb

As 1941 rolled into 1942, the Ferrua team determined to begin excavation in the exact area where the ancient writings reported the original basilica stood over Peter’s tomb. Based on the ancient accounts, Kaas and his team believed they would find Peter’s remains in a glorious bronze sarcophagus created by Constantine to honor Peter.92 A monument to mark the tomb, called the Trophy of Gaius, had reportedly been erected around 150 or earlier, but completely covered four times over the millennia — during the building of the first basilica by Constantine and then in 600, in the twelfth century, and in the seventeenth century.⁹³ The team believed they would find the Trophy of Gaius near Constantine’s bronze sarcophagus.

Outside, the world remained oblivious to these secret excavations. Millions died in Germany’s invasion of Russia, and the Axis powers spread over the globe. Mussolini strutted before huge crowds outside Vatican City. The Italian conquerors, with Nazi help, reached El Alamein in the Western Desert of Egypt and threatened Britain’s lifeline — the Suez Canal. Likewise, the Italians, with German help, conquered Yugoslavia, Greece, and Rhodes. Christianity was an irrelevant afterthought to the cheering Fascist crowds. Meanwhile, America was finally awakened from its sleep by Pearl Harbor.

Under the Vatican, the excavators began to work directly over the place where legend and writings placed Peter’s burial two thousand years before. The team found themselves among numerous first- and second-century Roman tombs. Several of these dated back almost to the death of Peter and the Age of Nero. But in the very center of the Necropolis, they encountered one of history’s strangest structures. It was a maze of shrines within shrines and walls within walls, resembling a set of Russian matryoshka dolls, one nesting inside the other, each smaller shrine older than the larger one that housed it.94 What actually lay underneath each layer was a mystery. Tunneling into the center involved destroying portions of ancient shrines, but the excavators proceeded anyway, traveling back hundreds of years in time as they neared the center. They encountered first a magnificent, Renaissance-era altar from the early 1600s. It had been built to cover earlier altars during the construction of the new St. Peter’s. Moving through this, they found a smaller altar built between 1119 and 1124.⁹⁵ In effect, they traveled back to the age of the Crusades — the age of Saladin and Richard.

Finally, as 1942 rolled on, they encountered two important walls. The first, called the Red Wall, was made of red bricks from the time of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. It was therefore dated after, but near, 160. This wall transected the area.⁹⁶ Why or how the Red Wall was built remained a mystery. A second wall, which became known as the Graffiti Wall, built around 250, was also located near the Necropolis’s center.⁹⁷ This wall, cut off by later construction, was covered in markings. The marks were clearly Roman names and symbols, but they were otherwise unreadable to the Ferrua team, who dismissed the wall as unintelligible and insignificant.98

The dismissal of the inscriptions on the Graffiti Wall would turn out to be a disastrous mistake.

There were other mistakes as well. In the rush to find the bronze sarcophagus, Ferrua largely ignored the other human remains the team periodically encountered. The field of forensic study of human remains for historical purposes was largely undeveloped at this time. It probably never occurred to the Ferrua team that the remains themselves could provide valuable evidence. The team ignored Kaas, the project leader, when he urged greater respect for the dead. Eventually they refused to speak to him, treating him with cold contempt as an amateur among professionals. Kaas, however, would quietly return to the excavation site each day after work, where he would recover and respectfully box the remains that Ferrua and his team had passed over in their hurry.⁹⁹ He did so more as a priest than an archeologist. He would then label and date the remains, citing the location where they were found, and give the bones to a workman to place in storage. Ultimately, Ferrua’s blindness to the Graffiti Wall and his indifference to human remains would delay for decades the discovery of the true story of Saint Peter.

Margherita Guarducci

A short distance away, now also in Rome, Margherita Guarducci completed her work deciphering Cretian and pre-Classical Greek inscriptions, three hundred to five thousand years old. She had discovered and photographed these over many years in remote locations on the island of Crete, now occupied by the Nazis. Interrupted by the war, she moved to Rome, where she taught at the University of Rome. She had no idea of the work going on under the Vatican. However, Guarducci would in several years become involved, using her extraordinary powers of deduction to see what Ferrua was too blind to see.

Some people are endowed with special, inexplicable gifts of genius — for example, George Strake’s second sight, which enabled him to see the hidden ocean of oil where others only saw dirt and undrinkable water. These gifts manifest themselves in strange ways. Young Willie Mays runs at the crack of a bat to the exact spot in the vast center field of the Polo Grounds where the ball will land. An aging, paunchy Babe Ruth hits fifty-four home runs in 1928 — twice as many as any other player — because he has an instinct that tells him where and how the pitch will come. Vincent van Gogh sees the stars we all see, but his Starry Night shows us something we never imagined. A deaf Beethoven composes the Ninth Symphony, carrying those of us who can hear to heights we never could have dreamed of. In the same way, Guarducci had a strange genius of her own. She was consumed by inscription puzzles, and she had a special sight — a combination of deduction and genius — that would allow her in time to decipher the clues leading to Peter.

No Bronze Sarcophagus, No Great Golden Cross

But that was decades away. For now, through wall after wall, Ferrua’s team continued to excavate. They worked through an eleventh-century shrine erected in the Age of the Crusades and the Norman Conquest. They then encountered a smaller altar built by Pope Saint Gregory the Great around 600, when the Western world lay largely in darkness — a relic of the Dark Ages. Now came the greatest point of suspense so far in the excavation: Would they uncover the marble enclosure built by Constantine within the Gregory altar? If so would it actually be intact, or would it simply house another looted tomb?

On the windy plain outside the ancient ruins of Ephesus in Turkey lies the tomb of the Apostle John — the “beloved” apostle. This tomb was once the centerpiece of a great church also built by Constantine. Now John’s grave is an empty hole amid ruins, looted long ago by Saracens and then Venetians. Would Peter’s grave be simply another looted hole? Breaking through Gregory’s altar, the team found the marble enclosure built by Constantine exactly as described in the Book of the Popes; it was wholly intact. It had never been entered in the nearly 1,700 years since it was sealed.

The team was elated, convinced they were on the verge of uncovering the great gold cross and bronze sarcophagus described in the Book of the Popes. They were about to be the first humans in 1,600 years to see Constantine’s monument to Peter. They broke into the Constantine enclosure, exposing it for the first time since 337. They were shocked both by what was there and what was missing. No great bronze sarcophagus. No large gold cross. No gold or silver of any kind. Instead, what they found was a strange second-century monument, not at all Christian in form but actually in a pagan style, but clearly a marker. Could this monument be the fabled Trophy of Gaius? If so, did Peter and the great treasure lie within or under it?

In their anxiety to reach the sarcophagus, the excavators noted, but did not understand, a strange architectural detail. In a perfectly symmetrical church, built by the Romans — history’s greatest engineering perfectionists — the Constantine enclosure was built asymmetrically, larger on one side than the other, so as to enclose a part of the Graffiti Wall. The Graffiti Wall had no apparent function. It would have been logical and simple for Constantine’s builders to demolish it and erect a perfect enclosure for Peter’s tomb. But the Romans had not done so. Instead, they created an asymmetrical structure to enclose and protect it. The excavators noted this imperfection but dismissed it as meaningless.

The Ferrua Team believed the strange marker they had discovered in the Constantine enclosure to be the legendary Trophy of Gaius.100 Nearby tiles bearing inscriptions from the Emperor Aurelius indicated the monument dated to about A.D. 150. Many coins (one dating to A.D. 14) and Christian votive offerings were found.¹⁰¹ The monument’s pagan appearance had probably been intended to conceal its purpose from Roman officials. A cross or Christian symbol in the Roman capitol would have been quickly destroyed and its builders crucified for their sacrilege of Rome.

Having arrived at last at the center of the Necropolis and directly under the Vatican altar, the excavators entered the Trophy of Gaius.¹⁰² There they found wonderful murals of saints, confirming the monument’s Christian origin.¹⁰³ The team was terribly disappointed, however. Inside there were no bronze sarcophagus, no great golden cross, no gold or silver, and no reference at all to Peter. They then dug down. They found an additional chamber filled with early Roman coins and votive offerings, suggesting offerings made in honor of a saint. Finally, they found a small opening near the very base of the Red Wall … and in that opening, they encountered bones.¹⁰⁴

Pius XII was summoned. He watched as the bones were exhumed from their dusty grave. Everyone watching believed that after two thousand years, they had found the remains of Peter. Yet they were perplexed by the absence of the bronze casket and treasure described in the Book of the Popes. Why had the great apostle been interred in a simple dirt grave instead of under a golden cross or other more fitting monument? Perhaps the builders of the first St. Peter’s Basilica had not wished to disturb the apostle’s initial grave. This explanation satisfied the Ferrua team. They believed the numerous ancient coins and votive offerings in the vicinity of the grave were sufficient to prove its authenticity.

It was 1942. The bones were placed in lead-lined boxes at the pope’s direction and moved to his own apartment, where they would rest for many years. His personal physician (a general practitioner untrained in forensics) examined the remains and declared them to be those of a sixty-five-year-old man.105 The more than two thousand coins discovered on the floor of Peter’s grave were found to date to the first and second centuries, close to the time of Peter’s death. Graves of other early popes were found in close proximity. Moreover, it was clear these bones had been buried before the Red Wall was built around 160.¹⁰⁶ All were convinced that they had found the relics of Peter. The later discovery of the graves of other early popes seemed to confirm the finding. At the express command of Pius XII, the find was to be kept absolutely secret.

In truth, the excavators had made a logical, but terrible, mistake — one that would not be discovered for a decade. Just like the pagan Romans long ago, the excavators were blind to certain key clues, ingeniously designed to protect Peter’s remains from discovery. For now, the excavations financed by Strake continued while the war raged on outside.