St. Peter - Reputed Original Grave Site, Vatican Hill

It is believed that Peter died in Rome, outside the city limits at Nero's Circus, and was buried in a nearby cemetery.  After the Emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion, he ordered a basilica to be built over Peter's grave.

Thousands of years passed.  In the interim, Rome fell, the empire was conquered by others and people forgot about what was beneath the now-deteriorating church and shrine.  During the twentieth century, information in the Vatican's Secret Archives was reportedly discovered which led to an investigation of the site. 

Bones were discovered in the grave and were determined to be those of a man who had died in the mid-first century, A.D.  Writing on the wall of the grave led investigators to believe that the bones might be those of St. Peter.

This photograph is part of that investigative record which has been made public.

Credits

Photo included in The Bones of St. Peter, by by John Evangelist Walsh, Doubleday & Co, New York (1982).  Image online, courtesy Saint Peters Basilica.org.