The name of the man who helped Jesus Christ carry His cross may have survived for 2,000 years — carved into an ancient burial chest in Jerusalem.

The limestone chest, known as an ossuary used to hold human bones, bears the inscription “Alexander, son of Simon,” matching the father-and-son pairing recorded in the Gospel of Mark. It was discovered in a Jerusalem tomb in 1941, and for decades scholars have debated whether the inscription refers to the biblical family or merely people who happened to share the same names.

New Testament scholar Dr. Jeremiah Johnston, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Jesus Discoveries, believes the clues point toward a real connection.

“So we have a Simon, a son named Alexander, and a Cyrenian family, buried in Jerusalem in the right period, before 70 AD. Is it the same family? I think it is very plausible, if not likely,” Johnston said.

A further clue appears on the lid — a Hebrew marking interpreted as a reference to Cyrene, the same North African city associated with Simon in the Bible. Simon of Cyrene was a Black man from Africa whom the Roman soldiers forced to help Jesus carry His cross through the streets of Jerusalem (Mark 15:21).

“The convergence of the name, the son, the Cyrenian origin, and the date is striking,” said Johnston. “In my judgment it tips toward a real connection.”

Caution is warranted, and Johnston himself urges it: “Simon was the most common Jewish name of the time, and Alexander was popular too.” A total of 11 ossuaries were found inside that Jerusalem tomb.

Notably, the tomb lacked a bone box dedicated to Alexander’s brother, Rufus. In Mark 15:21 we read: “A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross.” With the missing ossuary, Johnston said: “So we cannot call it proven with certainty, but high probability.”

He added: “What is not in doubt is what Mark is doing. He names Simon’s sons because his first readers knew them. He is pointing to living witnesses who could confirm the story. Ancient legends don’t work that way. Eyewitness history does. And this ossuary shows that Mark’s details fit real people in real Jerusalem.”

The chest carries three separate inscriptions on its front, back and lid, with Alexander and Simon’s names appearing more than once. Writing about the artifact in 2003, Biblical Archaeology Review contributor Tom Powers described an apparent engraving mistake: the writer began adding Alexander’s name beside Simon’s before starting again on the lines below.

The lid contains lettering in both Greek and Hebrew. The Greek inscription translates as “of Alexander,” while “QRNYT” alongside his name has been interpreted as a reference to Cyrene — though that reading remains uncertain. Powers suggested the engraver may have made a one-letter error when writing the Hebrew word for “Cyrenian.”

Powers reported that Israeli historian Tal Ilan, an expert on ancient Jewish names, considered it “very likely” that the chest belonged to the Alexander mentioned in Mark’s Gospel.

Powers raised an even more intriguing possibility: the chest may once have held the remains of both Alexander and his father, Simon. In a follow-up analysis published in 2006, he argued that differences in the lettering could reveal how the chest was reused and its inscriptions added over time — Simon’s name carved first in deeper lines, Alexander’s added later in shallower strokes. Another clue appears on the opposite side, where the two names were written on separate lines in green chalk, which Powers argued could be read as a list of two individuals whose remains shared the chest.

The theory remains disputed. Powers also noted that the excavation report did not document bones recovered from inside the chests.

Other evidence helps place the burial in the period described by Johnston — no more than 40 years after Jesus’ death. Pottery found in the tomb, including a distinctive Herodian oil lamp, supported dating its final use to the first century AD, before Jerusalem fell to the Romans in AD 70.

What does it all mean? For the Bible-believing Christian, the lesson is plain: Jesus Himself said that if His disciples were silent, “the stones would immediately cry out” (Luke 19:40). Here, two thousand years later, the stones are crying out — bearing witness that the men Mark named were real men, in a real Jerusalem, on a real road to a real cross. Archaeology does not create our faith; “the word of our God shall stand for ever” (Isaiah 40:8). But when the spade of the archaeologist keeps confirming the pen of the evangelist, the scoffer is left without excuse.

Originally published on Black Christian News.