Pilgrim

The vessels may have been brought to the site by early Christian pilgrims who came to visit the Church of St. Peter

Graffiti with the name of a 15th-century Swiss knight has been discovered in Jerusalem, carved into the walls of a building where pilgrims stayed, the Israel Antiquities Authority said on Oct. 20.

The knight Adrian von Bubenberg is believed to have visited the holy city in 1466, when researchers say he may have marked his name alongside his family emblem on a stone ceiling.

Two million Muslims from across the globe are converging on Mecca in Saudi Arabia for the hajj pilgrimage, a religious duty and for some pilgrims the journey of a lifetime.

At least 717 pilgrims were killed on Sept. 24 in a crush at Mina, outside the Muslim holy city of Mecca, where some two million people are performing the annual haj pilgrimage, Saudi Arabia's civil defence authority said. 

Bulgarian archaeologists discovered an ampoule containing ashes from the grave of St. John the Apostle on the Foros peninsula near the city of Burgas.

According to the director of the Historical Museum in Burgas, Milen Nikolov, who showed the leaden ampoule on Wednesday, the sacred substance contained inside it was believed to have healing capacities.