A 2,000-year-old bronze ring found near Bethlehem bears the name of Pontius Pilate, the Roman official who ordered Jesus Christ to be crucified, archeologists have revealed.

The ring was found 50 years ago during an archeological excavation at the site of a fortress built by King Herod, but was overlooked for decades and has only been analysed properly now.

Archeologists discovered Greek writing which spells out “Pilatus” around the central image of a wine vessel known as a krater.

The writing emerged after the ring was given a careful clean and photographed using a special camera in a laboratory belonging to the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Pilate was prefect or governor of the Roman province of Judaea under the Emperor Tiberius when he presided at Christ’s trial and gave the order for his crucifixion.

The ring was originally unearthed in the late 1960s at Herodian, also known as Herodium, a monumental fortress and palace built by King Herod in the desert near Bethlehem.

It was one of hundreds of artifacts that came to light, including glass objects, pottery, coins dating from the First Jewish Revolt and iron arrowheads.

Some experts think the ring belonged to Pontius Pilate himself.

“I don’t know of any other Pilatus from the period and the ring shows he was a person of stature and wealth,” Danny Schwartz, a professor of Jewish history, told Haaretz newspaper.