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Rina Avner

Abstract

About 300 m north of the Mar-Elias Monastery, near an ancient water reservoir, “Bir Kadismo” on the British survey map, three salvage excavations were conducted on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority in 1992, 1997 and 2000; another excavation was undertaken in 1999, in collaboration with the University of Athens and representatives of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Remains of a church with a unique octagonal plan were discovered, as well as buildings identified as the monastery to which the church belonged. The plan comprises three concentric octagons surrounding a rock. The inner and middle octagons were separated by columns and corner pilasters, which also supported the dome over the inner octagon. The middle octagon served as an ambulatory surrounding the rock in the center of the church; people could walk around the rock and gaze at it through the columns. The outer octagon was divided into three entrance rooms on the west, north and south. In the east, the central apse protruded from the outer octagon where the bema stood. Four chapels extended along the diagonal sides of the outer octagon (in the northwest, northeast, southwest and southeast). Each chapel had a hall that opened onto an apse in the wide wall closest to the east. In the corners between the entrance rooms and the chapels adjacent to them were passage rooms irregular in plan (somewhat kite-shaped). Although only one course of the walls survived, the presence of thresholds indicated that one could pass from the entrance rooms to the middle octagon and from there, to the rock in the center of the inner octagon, or turn left and right to enter the chapels. From the chapels it was possible to enter the middle octagon through the walls that separated them from each other. The entrance system allowed to close each of the chapels and isolate it from the others to hold private ceremonies, without disturbing the activity around the stone and in the central bema and apsis in the east. While excavating, we identified two Byzantine layers, topped by an Umayyad one. A water installation, comprising a pipe that drained water into the rock was attributed to the later Byzantine layer. It is possible that this is a remnant of an installation that produced holy water that touched the rock of the Kathisma and was distributed to the pilgrims. In the Umayyad layer, a niche was installed in the south of the ambulatory, blocking the passage from it to the outer octagon. The niche opened to the north and probably served as a miḥrab. In one of the rooms, an elegant mosaic was discovered with a red background and decorated with a large date-palm tree flanked by two small date-palm trees, all bearing clusters of fruit. This mosaic may be understood as an allusion to the story of the birth of Jesus in the Qur’an, according to which Miriam’s life was saved from difficult labor pains thanks to the intervention of God who provided her with a date tree, which nourished her with its fruit and water that flowed from the spring at its roots.

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