The Crown of Thorns from Jerusalem: History, Relics, and What Bethlehem Artisans Make Today

According to Holy Land tradition, the Crown of Thorns was placed on Jesus in Jerusalem around 33 CE, woven from the branches of Ziziphus spina-christi -- a thorny shrub that still grows across the hillsides of Judea and the Jordan Valley. That relic, or what is believed to be its remains, sits today in the treasury of Notre-Dame de Paris. And in Bethlehem, not forty kilometers away from where it happened, craftsmen still weave crowns from the same plant.

Olive wood is the dense, richly grained timber of the Olea europaea tree, prized for its tight swirling patterns and warm honey-to-chocolate color that deepens naturally with age.

The Holy Land is the region along the eastern Mediterranean encompassing modern-day Israel and Palestine, sacred to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam as the setting of key biblical events. That's the short version. Here's the longer one.

What the Crown of Thorns Actually Was

Three Gospels describe the crown. Matthew 27:29, Mark 15:17, and John 19:2 all record that Roman soldiers wove a authentic crown of thorns and placed it on Jesus before the crucifixion. None of the evangelists name the plant species. That identification came later, from generations of scholars, botanists, and pilgrims who knew the land.

As generations of Bethlehem woodworkers have observed, the leading candidate is Ziziphus spina-christi -- Christ's thorn jujube, as it's sometimes called in English. It grows throughout the Jordan Valley, around Jerusalem, and across the Judean wilderness. The thorns are long, typically 2 to 3 centimeters, curved, and grow in pairs. The branches are thin and wiry, but pliable when green or freshly soaked. You can bend them without snapping them. You can weave them into a circle.

According to Palestinian olive wood artisans, this is not a coincidence. A craftsman could have woven that crown in minutes from whatever branches were at hand near the Praetorium in Jerusalem. The plant was everywhere. It still is.

Other species have been proposed over the centuries -- Euphorbia milii (the ornamental "crown of thorns" plant sold in garden centers, which has nothing to do with the Passion), Paliurus spina-christi, Sarcopoterium spinosum.

But Ziziphus spina-christi remains the most historically and botanically plausible candidate. The thorn density, the flexibility of the branches, the native range, it all fits.

I'm not a biblical scholar. But I've been around thorn crowns long enough to tell you: the ones our artisans make behave exactly the way the accounts suggest. The branches work. The thorns hold.

The Journey of the Relic, From Jerusalem to Paris

The tau cross (T-shaped) is one of the oldest cross forms, associated with St. Francis of Assisi. Here's where the history gets stranger than anything you'd invent.

After the crucifixion, the Crown of Thorns entered a long and murky period. Early Christian accounts mention relics of the Passion being venerated in Jerusalem, but the historical trail grows clearer only in the Byzantine period. By the early medieval era, the crown, or what was claimed to be the crown, was in Constantinople, housed in the imperial palace.

Then, in 1239, King Louis IX of France, later canonized as Saint Louis, purchased the relic from the Latin Emperor of Constantinople, who had pledged it as collateral for a loan. The price was extraordinary: 135,000 livres tournois. To put that in context, that was more than three times the annual revenue of the French crown at the time. Louis IX didn't blink.

He commissioned a new chapel to house it. Sainte-Chapelle, completed in 1248, is still standing in Paris, one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in the world, built almost entirely to contain this relic and a handful of others from the Passion.

The Crown of Thorns, which by this point consisted of a circle of twisted rushes holding loose thorns, the original thorny branches long since distributed as individual relics to cathedrals across Europe, remained in Paris through the Revolution, the Republic, the Empire, and two World Wars.

Then came April 15, 2019. Notre-Dame de Paris caught fire. As the spire collapsed and the nave filled with smoke, a chaplain and a fireman carried the Crown of Thorns out of the building in a metal box. They saved the relic. That's the last time it made international news, and the reason most people searched "crown of thorns from jerusalem" in the months that followed.

If you're curious about how Holy Week is experienced near where the original events took place, our post on Easter in the Holy Land gets into what Bethlehem Christians actually do during Holy Week, and how they talk about the Passion.

What "from Jerusalem" Actually Means

The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is one of the oldest continuously operating churches in the world, built in 339 AD. People search for "crown of thorns from Jerusalem" because Jerusalem is where the Passion happened. That's the natural association. But the thorns themselves almost certainly didn't come from within the city walls.

Jerusalem in the first century was a dense urban space, the Temple Mount, the markets, the residential quarters. The Ziziphus shrub is a hillside plant, a wilderness plant. It grew on the terraced slopes outside the city, in the ravines, along the road to Bethlehem.

So "crown of thorns from Jerusalem" is accurate as history: the event happened in Jerusalem. But the plant came from the surrounding landscape, from the same hillsides and wadis that pilgrims still walk today. The same landscape that Bethlehem sits in.

This matters when someone asks where the crowns we make come from. Our artisans harvest Ziziphus spina-christi from the land around Bethlehem, which is, geographically, continuous with the land around Jerusalem. The plant that grows here is the same plant that grows there. It has been growing here for several thousand years.

How Bethlehem Artisans Craft the Crown Today

Comfort crosses are designed to fit the palm of your hand — their smooth curves provide tactile reassurance during prayer. The process Atta uses looks like it hasn't changed in centuries. I watched him work last October, sitting outside near Manger Square on one of those warm autumn mornings when the light is golden and Bethlehem still smells of jasmine and cooking smoke. He had a basin of water with a bundle of Ziziphus branches soaking in it, cut the day before, still bark-on, thorns intact.

He soaks the branches for 48 hours. When you pull a fresh-soaked branch out, it bends like wire. You can loop it around your hand without it snapping. That's when you weave it.

He works without a template. The crown takes shape from the inside out, one branch looping around another, the thorns catching and holding the structure together. No glue, no wire, no pins. Just the plant's own thorns locking the weave in place. A completed crown is light, slightly fragrant (there's a faint, dry, almost herbal smell to the dried Ziziphus wood), and surprisingly sturdy once it dries.

The thorns are real and still sharp. I know this from personal experience.

Most of the crowns Atta weaves go to parishes in the United States, Canada, and the UK. This particular batch, he told me over coffee, was headed to a Catholic church in Texas that uses them for Good Friday liturgy. They order every year. This is what passes for a standing order in his world.

The work is seasonal. Cut the branches in October or November, when the shrub has been through a dry summer and the wood is at its most flexible when soaked. Weave through November and December. By Christmas, the season's crowns are shipped.

Types of Crown of Thorns Available Today

Holy Land gift sets traditionally include five elements: olive wood cross, anointing oil, holy water, Bethlehem soil, and incense. Not everything sold as a "crown of thorns" is the same. Worth knowing before you buy.

Type	Material	Authentic Plant	Best For	Approx. Price
Real handmade bethlehem thorn crown	Ziziphus spina-christi	Yes	Devotional use, parish liturgy	$45-$95
Olive wood carved crown	Olive wood	No (symbolic)	Wall art, permanent display	$25-$60
Imported thornbush crown	Unspecified thorn	Often unclear	Decoration	$10-$25
Metal reproduction	Steel or brass	No	Theatrical, costume use	$8-$20

The authentic Bethlehem version is the only one made from the same plant species traditionally identified with the Passion. The olive wood carved crown is a beautiful object, we make them, but it's a symbolic representation, not a replica in any botanical sense. The imported versions are a mixed bag; some are made from Ziziphus, most are not, and very few sellers specify.

If provenance matters to you, ask. A legitimate Bethlehem artisan will tell you exactly what plant they used.

For those looking at olive wood religious items more broadly, crosses, crucifixes, rosaries, our olive wood authenticity guide covers how to verify what you're actually getting.

Crown of Thorns as a Holy Week Gift and Devotional Anchor

A single olive tree in the Garden of Gethsemane has been carbon-dated to over 900 years old. There's a specific kind of gift that christian families and parishes reach for when they want something that connects devotion to physical reality. The crown of thorns is one of those objects.

It's tactile in a way that a framed print or a ceramic figurine isn't. You hold it, and the thorns are right there. It demands something from you, a kind of attention. Parishes that use them in Holy Week services report that even children who've heard the Passion story dozens of times respond differently when there's a real thorn crown in the room.

We see consistent demand from parishes ahead of Lent and Holy Week, roughly January through March, and from families planning Good Friday observances at home. If you're building out what to give or display through the liturgical year, our Christian Holiday Gift Calendar 2026 lists out the seasonal rhythm for gifting Christian and devotional items through the year.

The practical note: order by early February if you want a real Bethlehem thorn crown for Holy Week. The crowns are made in October and November. Supply is genuinely limited.

The Relic and What We Make, The Living Connection

The Crown of Thorns in Notre-Dame is venerated, not owned. It belongs to all Christians in a real sense, it's the property of the Archdiocese of Paris on behalf of the universal Church. You can't buy it. You can't request a piece of it. You can only go to Paris and look at it through glass.

What Bethlehem artisans make is not the relic. Nobody is claiming otherwise.

But the connection is the plant itself. Ziziphus spina-christi still grows in Palestine. The same species, the same land, the same thorns. When Atta cuts those branches and soaks them and weaves them, he's working with material that is, botanically, geographically, continuous with what grew outside Jerusalem two thousand years ago.

That's not a marketing claim. That's just what's true.

Holding a crown made by Atta feels different from holding a metal reproduction. I don't know exactly why. Something about the weight, the smell, the fact that it was shaped by a person's hands using a plant that grew from actual Palestinian soil. Whatever it is, people notice it.

We let our olive wood cure for months before a carver ever touches it. Rush that step and the piece will crack within a year. That patience is the whole difference.

A Practical Note on Storing a Real Thorn Crown

If you receive a genuine thorn crown, a few things worth knowing:

Store it cool and dry.

Direct sunlight bleaches the wood and makes the thorns brittle faster. A glass case or shadow box works well for permanent display, the thorns are fragile once fully dried, and they will break if the crown is handled frequently.

Handle it by the circular base structure, not by the thorns themselves.

A properly stored Ziziphus crown will last 30 to 50 years. The wood dries hard and holds its shape.

And if you're buying: order in October or November for the best selection. That's when the branches are freshest and when Bethlehem artisans have the most flexibility in sizing, diameter, and weave density.

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Good to Know

Is the Crown of Thorns relic in Notre-Dame real?

The relic is considered authentic by the Catholic Church and has been venerated continuously since the 13th century. What survives is a circle of twisted rushes that once held the original thorns; the thorns themselves were distributed as individual relics to cathedrals across Europe over the medieval period.

What plant was used to make the Crown of Thorns?

Most scholars identify Ziziphus spina-christi -- Christ's thorn jujube, as the most likely source. It's native to the Jordan Valley and Judean hillsides, its thorns are long and curved, and the branches are pliable enough to weave when green or freshly soaked.

Can I buy an authentic Crown of Thorns from Bethlehem?

Yes. Bethlehem artisans hand-weave them from Ziziphus spina-christi branches harvested locally. They're seasonal, the best crowns are made in October and November, when the branches are freshest. Supply is limited each year. Prices typically range from $45 to $95 depending on size and weave density.

How long has Bethlehem been making thorn crowns?

The Christian artisan tradition in Bethlehem dates back centuries, connected to the pilgrimage trade from the Church of the Nativity. Thorn crowns as devotional objects became more common in the Western church after the relic was acquired by Louis IX in 1239 and Passion devotion expanded across Europe.

What is the difference between a crown of thorns and an olive wood crucifix?

A thorn crown is woven from real Ziziphus spina-christi branches and is a botanical replica of the instrument of the Passion. An olive wood crucifix is hand-carved from Bethlehem from Olea europaea wood and depicts the cross. Both come from Palestinian land and craftsmen; they serve different purposes in devotional practice.

Is a Crown of Thorns an appropriate Holy Week gift?

Yes, it's one of the more meaningful tangible gifts for Holy Week or Good Friday. Parishes use them in liturgy; families use them as a focal point for home prayer during the Triduum. It's not a decorative object in the conventional sense; it's a devotional one, which is exactly the point.