Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAsākir relates (1) through the chain of al-Walīd ibn Muslim, from Zayd ibn Wāqid, who said:
“I saw the head of John son of Zechariah when they began constructing the Great Mosque of Damascus. It was brought out from beneath the corner of the qiblah wall adjacent to the miḥrāb on the eastern side; the skin and the hair were exactly as they had been, unchanged.”
Another wording states: “It was as though he had been slain only moments ago.”
It is further reported that, during the mosque’s construction, the head was placed beneath the column known as the Sakāsikah Column. Allah knows best. (2)

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAsākir also transmits in “Al-Mustaqṣā fī Faḍāʾil al-Aqṣā,” through al-ʿAbbās ibn Ṣubḥ, from Marwān, from Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, from Qāsim, the freedman of Muʿāwiyah:
“The king of this city—meaning Damascus—was Haddād ibn Haddād. He had given his son in marriage to the daughter of his brother, Ariel, queen of Sidon.”
I say: Among her holdings was the “King’s Market” (3) in Damascus, the old gold-smiths’ bazaar.
He continued: “The king had sworn triple divorce against her; later he wished to reinstate her, so he sought a legal ruling from John son of Zechariah. John declared, ‘She is not lawful for you until she marries another husband.’ She nursed a grudge against him and, at her mother’s prompting, asked the king for the head of John son of Zechariah. He refused at first, then consented, and sent a man to John—who was standing in prayer in the Jīrūn Mosque—who brought back his head on a platter. The head kept repeating, ‘She is not lawful for him until she marries another husband.’
“The woman took the tray, set it upon her head, and carried it to her mother while it continued to repeat the same words. When she stood before her mother, the earth swallowed her up to her feet (4), then to her waist. Her mother wailed, and the maidservants screamed and slapped their faces. She then sank to her shoulders. Her mother ordered the executioner to strike off her neck so that she might find solace in her head, and he did so. The earth thereupon spewed out her corpse, and they were plunged into disgrace and ruin.

“John’s blood kept boiling until Nebuchadnezzar arrived and killed seventy-five thousand people because of it.” Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz said, “That is the blood-price for every prophet.”
“The blood continued to boil until the prophet Jeremiah, peace be upon him, stood over it and said, ‘O blood, you have annihilated the Children of Israel; so be still, by Allah’s leave.’ Thereupon it subsided (5). The sword was sheathed, and whoever could fled from Damascus to Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar pursued them there, killed an untold multitude, took captives from among them, and then withdrew.”