Last resting place of Jesus ?

If it really were the most important archaeological discovery in history, the point of truth came with very little song or dance. There was no drum roll or fanfare, just the sweeping aside of black felt drapes to reveal a pair of simple stone boxes sitting side by side.

But for the panel of film-makers, theologians and statisticians at New York's public library yesterday, this really was the moment. As James Cameron, the director of the film Titanic who has lent his name to the project, said: "It doesn't get bigger than this".

The claim that was being presented to the world's media and which will be aired on the Discovery Channel on Sunday was that the two boxes once contained the bones of Jesus of Nazareth and his wife Mary Magdalene. Another box, not present at yesterday's event but coincidentally on display in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, contained, so the theory goes, the bones of their son, Judah.

The boxes, which housed human bones and are known as ossuaries, are made out of Jerusalem limestone with its distinctive colour of clotted cream. The smaller of the two bears the inscription Jesus, son of Joseph, while the larger and more lavishly decorated is marked in the name of Mariamene e Mara.

According to the Canadian documentary-maker, Simcha Jacobovici, the inscription translates as Mary Magdalene the Master. It is his contention that he and his team of advisers have conclusively found the tomb of Jesus and his family.

"This is somewhat surreal," Mr Jacobovici said as the drapes were pulled back. "To think that maybe under that felt are the ossuaries of Jesus of Nazareth and Mary Magdalene which lay together side by side for 2,000 years."

The claim that Jesus was married to his disciple Mary Magdalene, that they had a child together in the style of the Da Vinci code, and that after his death he left behind his bones rather than being resurrected in the flesh elicited an outcry that was as instant as it was predictable.

The American-based Catholic League dubbed the theory a "Titanic fraud", saying that not a Lenten season goes by without some author or TV programme seeking to cast doubt on the divinity.

Amos Kloner, a top Israeli archaeologist who was one of the first to examine the ossuaries when they were discovered, said: "We have no scientific proof that this is indeed the tomb of Jesus and his family members".

At the centre of the controversy is an undisputed fact: that 10 ossuaries dating from the first century were found in the Talpiot suburb of Jerusalem in 1980 by building workers. A common funeral practice at that time was to leave the bodies of the deceased to decay for up to a year until only their bones were left, then pack them in the stone boxes and entomb them.

Of the 10 ossuaries found, six had inscriptions bearing the names of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, another Mary who the film-makers deem to be Jesus's mother, Matthew and Yose who they say were two of his four brothers, and son Judah. The existence of the boxes and the precise inscriptions they bore are matters of consensus, though how to interpret them certainly is not.

Mr Jacobovici, with the support the Oscar-winning Mr Cameron, who acted as executive producer, says the initial discovery of the ossuaries failed to excite much interest in 1980 because archaeologists were not armed at that time with the knowledge and scientific tools that now exist. His theory relies on the recent retranslation by experts of the Mariamene as Mary Magdalene.

The team carried out DNA sampling on matter remaining in the two boxes and claim it supports the contention that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were man and wife. And they turned to statistical advice from a professor in Toronto who concluded on the basis of the six names etched into the ossuaries that the possibility of this being the Jesus family tomb should be "taken very seriously indeed", putting the probability that the tomb housed an entirely different family at 600-1.

But even as the felt was being pulled back yesterday, holes in the theory were becoming glaringly evident. The DNA available to investigators is very limited as the bones themselves have long since been reburied.

The test carried out by the film-makers was mitochondrial - that is it only contained information on maternal inheritance, thus allowing the possibility that Jesus and Mariamene were brother and sister through the paternal line.

Israeli archaeologists were also quick to point out that despite the statistical work commissioned by Mr Jacobovici, the names scratched into the boxes were all highly popular and common in the first century.

"We know that Joseph, Jesus and Mariamene were all among the most common names of the period. To start with all these names being together in a single tomb and leap from there to say this is the tomb of Jesus is a little far-fetched, to put it politely," said David Mevorah, a curator of the Israel museum in Jerusalem.

Professor Kloner told the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper that the name Jesus had been found 71 times in burial caves at around that time.

The documentary, The Lost Tomb of Jesus, airs on the Discovery Channel on tonight at 9pm.

Guardian Unlimited