Mariamene e Mara

Ossuary 80/500: “Mariamene e Mara” – “Mariamne, also called Master”

The ossuary of a Jewish woman who moved in Greek circles.

The ossuary of an elite, a “Mara,” a “Master.”

The “Mara” added at the end of her name, in Aramaic, means “Master” or “teacher.” It is usually a masculine term, but then, Mariamne was performing duties usually restricted to men on the authority of Jesus.

Mary Magdalene was likely a woman of means, helping to fund Jesus and his ministry. The Gospels tell us that the Magdalene, as she is known, went with Jesus on his fateful journey to Jerusalem, where she witnessed the Crucifixion. She was the first of the disciples to discover the empty tomb of Jesus as well as the first to see the Risen Jesus. She has been called “the apostle of the apostles” because she was the one to bring the news to the rest of the disciples.

To the Greek Orthodoxy, Mary is a Saint, the Holy Myrrh-Bearer and “Equal-to-the-Apostles.”

From such non-canonical Gnostic texts such as The Pistis Sophia and The Gospel of Philip, we glean that Mariamne/Magdalene was sister to Philip (one of the twelve original apostles) and Martha; that Jesus called her "chosen among women"; that she performed miracles and baptized converts

And that she died at the Jordan River, “near Jerusalem,” not in France or Ephesus as later tradition suggests.

Mariamne, Mary Magdalene, was indeed a Mara.