The Pilate Stone
The governor who tried Jesus, named in stone
All four Gospels name the Roman who sentenced Jesus. Luke dates the start of John the Baptist's preaching "in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea" (Luke 3:1), and Matthew says they "delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor" (Matthew 27:2). In 1961, at Caesarea Maritima on the coast of Israel, an Italian team led by Antonio Frova was excavating the Roman theatre. The archaeologist Maria Teresa Fortuna Canivet found a limestone block that had been reused as a step in a later rebuilding. Its face carried part of a Latin dedication. It is now in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, with casts at Caesarea and in Milan.
What the stone says
Only part of the text survives. With the usual restorations in square brackets, it reads: "[...]S TIBERIEUM / [...PONTI]US PILATUS / [...PRAEF]ECTUS IUDA[EA]E / [...]E[...]." In English: a building called the Tiberieum, dedicated to the emperor Tiberius, by Pontius Pilate, prefect of Judea.
The title is the interesting detail. The Roman historian Tacitus, writing about AD 116, calls Pilate a "procurator," the title Judea's governors held later in the century. The stone shows that in Pilate's own time his title was "prefect." The Gospels use the general Greek word for a governor, which fits either.
What it shows
That Pontius Pilate governed Judea under Tiberius, as Luke says, and what his official title was. It is the only inscription from his own lifetime known to name him.
What it does not show
It says nothing about Jesus or the trial. And it would be an overstatement to say it proved Pilate existed: he was already named by the Jewish writers Philo of Alexandria and Josephus, by Tacitus, and by the Gospels. What the stone adds is a first-hand record from his own administration, and the correct title.
Where scholars divide
The damaged first line is the debate. Scholars agree it names a Tiberieum, a structure honouring Tiberius, but not what kind of building it was: some have proposed a temple, others a lighthouse or other public work at the harbour. The reconstruction of the lost words varies from one edition to another.
Related: Josephus and His Writings. Discovery and text as given in the standard descriptions of the Caesarea inscription; Tacitus, Annals 15.44, for "procurator." Letters in square brackets are scholarly restorations. Sources checked 2026-09-24: Pilate stone; Pontius Pilate: an archaeological biography. Scripture quotations from the King James Version. This page reports what was found and what it can bear; where a claim rests on tradition or a disputed reading, it says so.