Byzantine Churches in the Negev
In the first century BCE, the Nabateans (nomadic traders
from Northern Arabia) established a kingdom in today’s Kingdom of Jordan with Petra as its
capital. They accumulated great wealth from their trade in costly perfumes
and spices from East Africa and Arabia, which they transported by camel
caravans to the southern Mediterranean port of Gaza. To secure their trade
routes, the Nabateans built way stations at the intersections of the main
routes – at Kurnub (Mampsis), Shivta and Avdat.
In the inhospitable Negev desert, the Nabateans
developed an agriculture based on terraces built into the hillsides and on
a sophisticated system for collecting every drop of available water: to
capture flood waters, they constructed dams in the valleys; to collect rain
water, they cut cisterns into the rock. Their way stations grew into
cities.
The Nabatean kingdom was conquered by the Romans in the year 106 and annexed to the
Roman Empire.
Kurnub is located some 40 km. east of Be’er Sheva, above Nahal
Mamshit. The Romans fortified it as one of the limes, the network of forts
demarcating and protecting the eastern border of the Roman Empire. During
the Roman and Byzantine periods, Kurnub was a
flourishing city. In the second half of the 4th century, two churches were
built here. The city was abandoned at the time of the Arab conquest (mid-7th century).
The Eastern Church was built on
the highest point of the city. It is part of a 55 x 25 m. complex
consisting of service rooms and a small bathhouse. In front of the church
was an atrium (courtyard) surrounded by porticoes (roofed aisles); under
the courtyard was a cistern covered over with arches. The church measured
25.5 x 15 m., had two rows of columns, a bema (raised platform) and
an apse. The hall of the church was paved with mosaics in geometrical
patterns and large crosses; the aisles were paved with stone slabs. A small
room with a baptismal font in its floor was found south of the church.
Parts of the foundations of a four-roomed tower were uncovered near the
entrance to the church, apparently a bell tower, since a large stone
sundial was found there.
The smaller but more elaborate
Western Church, located in the western part of the city, was of similar
design. The mosaic floor of its hall was divided into octagonal medallions
in which birds and baskets of fruit are depicted, with two peacocks in
front of the raised platform. Two of the dedicatory inscriptions mention a
man by the name of Nilus as the builder of the church, as well as the names
of two of the church’s beadles.
Shivta is located some 40 km. southwest of Be’er Sheva. Some of
the buildings now standing date from the Roman period, but most were built in Byzantine times, when the inhabitants engaged in intensive agriculture. In the 4th
century two churches were built here (the northern and the southern);
later, in the 5th-6th century, when the city expanded, the central church
was added. Shivta appears to have been abandoned at some point during the Islamic period (9th-10th century).
The Southern Church was built
among the Roman-period buildings, next to the water cisterns. Because of
lack of space it had only one apse, with a room on either side of it. In
the 6th century, these rooms were turned into two small side apses with
wall paintings, surviving fragments of which depict Moses and Elijah and the Transfiguration of
Christ. During a later phase, several rooms were added north of the
basilica, including chapels and a large baptistery with a stone cruciform
baptismal font and a smaller, rock-cut font for infant baptism. An
inscription on a lintel attests to the building of these annexes at the
beginning of the 5th century, and one incorporated into the floor the year
640.
The Northern Church was part of a
large monastery, which consisted of many courtyards and some 40 rooms, in
the very north of the city. The only entrance to the church was through a
particularly large atrium (21 x 15 m.), which had an opening into the
rock-cut cistern beneath it. Between the atrium and the church is a narthex (passageway) leading to the triple entrance of the basilica, which
measures 12 x 10 m., divided by two rows of six columns into a main hall
and two aisles. As in the northern church, the original central apse with
rooms on either side of it was replaced with a triple apse in the 6th
century. Niches in the rear walls of the side apses probably contained
reliquaries. Marble slabs covered the floor and also the lower part of the
walls.
A chapel was constructed south of
the basilica, with an apse in its eastern side. The floor is paved with
mosaics in geometrical patterns and contains an inscription attesting to
its construction in the time of Bishop Thomas in the fifth year of the
indiction (517).
The baptistery, with a large
stone-cut baptismal font, lies south of the chapel. It was also used as a
cemetery, and contains several gravestones with the names of monks and
priests, dated between 612 and 679.
The Central Church was built in
the center of the new (5th-6th century) residential quarter in the northern
part of Shivta. It has a small, narrow atrium through which one enters a
basilica measuring 18 x 14 m. Along its length run two rows of four columns
and on its eastern side are three apses.
Avdat is located on a mountain ridge in the center of the Negev
highlands. In the middle of the 3rd century it was resettled and became an
important Roman military outpost, with
a residential quarter on the spur southeast of the acropolis. In the sixth
century, under Byzantine rule,
Avdat had an estimated population of 3,000. New agricultural crops were
grown in the valleys around the city and a number of wine presses, which
have been excavated, indicate intensive vine cultivation. A citadel and a
monastery with two churches were built on the acropolis. The city was
destroyed, probably by earthquake, and abandoned in the 7th century.
The Northern Church, in basilical
style, was reached through an atrium with a cistern and had a single apse.
Behind it, to the west, was a baptismal font in cruciform shape and a
smaller font for baptizing infants.
The more important Southern Church
had three apses on the eastern side. In the floor are reliquaries for the
remains of local saints. In the floor of the prayer hall of the church are
the tombs of clerical dignitaries with inscriptions on stone slabs covering
the tombs, dating from 542 to 618. One of the inscriptions gives the name
of the church, The Martyrion of St. Theodorus, also known from other
inscriptions, who served as abbot of the monastery of Avdat and was buried
in this church.
Sources: Israeli Foreign Ministry |