Franciscan archaeologists in the Holy Land have found first century sealed vases containing perfumed ointment of the kind Mary Magdalene would have used to anoint the feet of Jesus.

A team from the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum unearthed the vases during excavations at Magdala. They had been conserved in mud at a baths complex, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

Father Stefano De Luca, who led the dig, said ''The mud-filled condition of the site allowed us to find these truly extraordinary objects, which were intact and sealed and still contain greasy substances". He told the website Terrasanta.net: ''We think these are balms and perfumes, and if chemical analysis confirms this, they could be similar to those used by Mary Magdalene in the Gospels to anoint the feet of Christ''.

The surname Magdalene means "from Magdala". The accounts in the New Testament do not name Mary Magdalene as the woman who anointed Jesus feet, but she was identified as such by tradition and named by both Hipploytus in the third century and by Pope Gregory I in the sixth century.

St Luke writes: "And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment."

St John says: "Now there was a certain man sick, named Lazarus, of Bethania, of the town of Mary and Martha her sister. And Mary was she that anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair: whose brother Lazarus was sick".

In 591 Pope Gregory I said: "She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, and whom John calls Mary of Bethany, we believe to be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected according to Mark" - that is, Mary Magdalene. However some scholars hold that Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany were not the same person.

Father De Luca said ''Even if Mary Magdalene was not the woman who anointed the feet of Christ, the discovery of the unguentary vases at Magdala is extremely important. We have in our hands the cosmetic products from the time of Jesus. It's very likely that the woman who anointed Christ's feet used these products, or ones similar in organic composition and quality.''

The full account in St John's Gospel reads: "Then, six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was who had been dead, whom He had raised from the dead. There they made Him a supper; and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of those who sat at the table with Him. Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. But one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, who would betray Him said, "Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?" This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the money box; and he used to take what was put in it. But Jesus said, "Let her alone; she has kept this for the day of My burial. For the poor you have with you always, but Me you do not have always."