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Abstract

A salvageexcavation was conducted on the lowerwestern slope of a high hill east of NaḥalQidron, Jerusalem. The remains wereidentified as a Byzantine monastery.Most of the site washighly disturbed by construction activities andwas excavated as one large unit,including two courtyards, northern and southern, the rooms surrounding them on the north andsouth, and anundergroundburial complex in the east.The finds––pottery, roof tiles, glassand mosaic floors––date to the Byzantine–EarlyIslamic periods, up to the eighth century CE.Fragments of a few ossuaries date to the EarlyRoman period, but they lack a clear stratigraphiccontext. The monastic complex belongs to theone-story coenobium type that flourished inthe Judean Desert during the Byzantine period.

Keywords

Byzantine period, monastery, Christianity, art

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