Amateur historian Graham Phillips claims he owns the "Holy Grail", in this case the ointment jar used by Mary Magdalene to gather the blood of Jesus during the Crucifixion and later to anoint his body. This is one of four theories proposed by the documentary episode "The Holy Grail", part of "History's Greatest Mysteries".
To give Phillips credit he tracked down an ointment jar which according to the British Museum dates from the first century. The provenance was from a British-English family who owned the jar in the 19th century claiming it was the ointment jar of Mary Magdalene. That probability is about a million to one, if about zilch. The British Museum only authenticated it as a real ancient jar, nothing more, one of 1000's many of which can be bought on the market today at auction and specialized artifact retailers.
First problem: how many alabaster ointment jars existed in ancient Palestine or Egypt in the First Century? Probably over 100,000 of which 1000's survive. They are not rare. Examples can be had for about $500 to $1000. Even an example from Egypt about 2000 years older than Phillip's artifact went unsold at an auction in 2019 where the opening bid price was only $250. So what links his jar with Jesus? There is no real evidence presented and the reality is explained in problem no. 2.
Second Problem: If Jesus was crucified as a low-status criminal in Jerusalem, his body was burned in a common grave, not put in a tomb and not anointed. Tradition has held that Joseph of Arimathea asked Pontius Pilate for Jesus' body, a story which a lot of historians regard as a myth. Jesus rabble-roused and claimed he could destroy the Great Temple in Jerusalem. Pilate saw that as enough of a threat of sedition to have him arrested and crucified. (Pilate was rather notorious for crucifying rabble-rousers during Passover. Jesus was only one of perhaps 100's who were so crucified during Pilate's tenure in Jerusalem of about 10 years.) Enacting sedition was enough to push Pilate to execute Jesus, so the next step was to burn the body in a common grave which is what was done with 99.99% of condemned criminals in the Ancient Roman Empire.
Part of the punishment of crucifixion was to deny the condemned any kind of posthumous ritual and burial. So the notion that Pilate had Jesus' body put into a tomb and placed guards there is most definitely a Christian fiction and/or myth. There would be no burial and therefore no anointing of the body. But what about the gathering of blood during the execution?
Third Problem: crucified criminals typically were not stabbed. They died slow deaths as a result of suffocation, not impalement. The notion that a centurion stabbed Jesus with a spear is another Christian myth. So, the idea that Mary Magdalene went up on a step-ladder and took blood from Jesus' wounds from impaling is ludicrous. "Explicit linkages between menstrual blood, circumcision blood, and the blood of sacrificial victims are not made by biblical texts but are found in later Jewish interpretive traditions, especially rabbinic documents which would have been after the time of Jesus." (Oxford Bibliographies, "Blood in the Hebrew Bible"). It would have made no sense to someone like Mary Magdalene who was most certainly a Jew, to gather Jesus' blood as sacrificial, because that idea of Jesus as the Lamb of God isn't proposed until the Gospel of John around 100 CE, about 65+ years after the death of Jesus.
Phillips can claim all he wants that his jar was owned by Mary Magdalene but until historians can verify such a claim it really has no merit. He owns an ancient alabaster jar, a fairly common artifact. History doesn't pan out that this jar would have any connection to Jesus, and probably not having been owned by Mary Magdalene.
To give Phillips credit he tracked down an ointment jar which according to the British Museum dates from the first century. The provenance was from a British-English family who owned the jar in the 19th century claiming it was the ointment jar of Mary Magdalene. That probability is about a million to one, if about zilch. The British Museum only authenticated it as a real ancient jar, nothing more, one of 1000's many of which can be bought on the market today at auction and specialized artifact retailers.
First problem: how many alabaster ointment jars existed in ancient Palestine or Egypt in the First Century? Probably over 100,000 of which 1000's survive. They are not rare. Examples can be had for about $500 to $1000. Even an example from Egypt about 2000 years older than Phillip's artifact went unsold at an auction in 2019 where the opening bid price was only $250. So what links his jar with Jesus? There is no real evidence presented and the reality is explained in problem no. 2.
Second Problem: If Jesus was crucified as a low-status criminal in Jerusalem, his body was burned in a common grave, not put in a tomb and not anointed. Tradition has held that Joseph of Arimathea asked Pontius Pilate for Jesus' body, a story which a lot of historians regard as a myth. Jesus rabble-roused and claimed he could destroy the Great Temple in Jerusalem. Pilate saw that as enough of a threat of sedition to have him arrested and crucified. (Pilate was rather notorious for crucifying rabble-rousers during Passover. Jesus was only one of perhaps 100's who were so crucified during Pilate's tenure in Jerusalem of about 10 years.) Enacting sedition was enough to push Pilate to execute Jesus, so the next step was to burn the body in a common grave which is what was done with 99.99% of condemned criminals in the Ancient Roman Empire.
Part of the punishment of crucifixion was to deny the condemned any kind of posthumous ritual and burial. So the notion that Pilate had Jesus' body put into a tomb and placed guards there is most definitely a Christian fiction and/or myth. There would be no burial and therefore no anointing of the body. But what about the gathering of blood during the execution?
Third Problem: crucified criminals typically were not stabbed. They died slow deaths as a result of suffocation, not impalement. The notion that a centurion stabbed Jesus with a spear is another Christian myth. So, the idea that Mary Magdalene went up on a step-ladder and took blood from Jesus' wounds from impaling is ludicrous. "Explicit linkages between menstrual blood, circumcision blood, and the blood of sacrificial victims are not made by biblical texts but are found in later Jewish interpretive traditions, especially rabbinic documents which would have been after the time of Jesus." (Oxford Bibliographies, "Blood in the Hebrew Bible"). It would have made no sense to someone like Mary Magdalene who was most certainly a Jew, to gather Jesus' blood as sacrificial, because that idea of Jesus as the Lamb of God isn't proposed until the Gospel of John around 100 CE, about 65+ years after the death of Jesus.
Phillips can claim all he wants that his jar was owned by Mary Magdalene but until historians can verify such a claim it really has no merit. He owns an ancient alabaster jar, a fairly common artifact. History doesn't pan out that this jar would have any connection to Jesus, and probably not having been owned by Mary Magdalene.