This story circulated over the summer as well.
I have to remain a skeptic on this one. The problem is that there are two distinct findings here, and it is not at all clear whether one has to do with the other. The carvings are very late, from the Byzantine period, and only show that circa AD 600-900 the site was venerated as a place associated with John the Baptist. It cannot thus be used as evidence proving the existence of John the Baptist, only that people several hundreds of the years later thought it was where John had lived. The other finding relates to the jug shards which may have been used in mikvah ritual washing and which may date to the time of John the Baptist (if not before his time). But I find it highly tenuous to say that these jugs are relics of John the Baptist (who is represented in the gospels instead as immersing his followers in the Jordan rather than by pouring water with jugs in a cave, tho ritual washing could have also been another of his practices) on the basis of a very late tradition. Since ritual washing was widely practiced by Essenes and Pharisees throughout Judah and Galilee, it should not be surprising that such jugs should be found near a source of water. And it is not clear, anyway, what these jugs were used for....
