section_path: Remains
section_name: Remains
paragraph_text: Remains
  
  According to the Liber Pontificalis, Paul's body was buried outside the walls of Rome, at the second mile on the Via Ostiensis, on the estate owned by a Christian woman named Lucina. It was here, in the fourth century, that the Emperor Constantine the Great built a first church. Then, between the fourth and fifth centuries, it was considerably enlarged by the Emperors Valentinian I, Valentinian II, Theodosius I, and Arcadius. The present-day Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls was built there in the early 19th century.
  
  Caius in his Disputation Against Proclus (198 AD) mentions this of the places in which the remains of the apostles Peter and Paul were deposited: "I can point out the trophies of the apostles. For if you are willing to go to the Vatican or to the Ostian Way, you will find the trophies of those who founded this Church".
  
  Writing on Paul's biography, Jerome in his De Viris Illustribus in 392 AD mentions that "Paul was buried in the Ostian Way at Rome".
  
  In 2002, an 8-foot (2.4 m) -long marble sarcophagus, inscribed with the words "PAULO APOSTOLO MART", which translates as "Paul apostle martyr", was discovered during excavations around the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls on the Via Ostiensis. Vatican archaeologists declared this to be the tomb of Paul the Apostle in December 2006, the excavation having been completed in November. In the early 2000s, Vatican archaeologists conducted excavations to make the tomb more accessible to pilgrims. These excavations confirmed the presence of a white marble sarcophagus beneath the altar. The sarcophagus was not removed, but a window was created to allow visitors to view it.
  
  In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI announced that radiocarbon dating of bone fragments found in the sarcophagus indicated they were from the 1st or 2nd century, aligning with the traditional timeline of Paul's life. This discovery, along with other artifacts such as a piece of purple linen laminated with pure gold, grains of incense, and blue blue texiles with linen filaments, all support the hypothesis that the remains are indeed those of Saint Paul.
  
  The Vatican also confirmed that it had discovered and restored the earliest known image of Saint Paul, dating to the early 4th century AD, in the Catacomb of Saint Thekla, close to the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls in Rome. In 2010 it was revealed that this icon, painted on the ceiling of a catacomb, was adjacent to the oldest known depictions of Saint Peter, Saint John, and Saint Andrew, surrounding an imge of Christ as the Good Shepherd.