2.31 Nahariya — Basilica

Summary information

• Location

  GPS coordinates: 33.00913, 35.10338

  Structure is partially visible.

• Description

  The church at Nahariya is a triapsidal basilica. Measuring 16 x 32 m, it is one of the largest churches in the area. On its south side were traces of rooms belonging to the church complex. The walls of dressed local kurkar stone coated with thick plaster rested directly on the rock whereas the pavement lay on a levelled fill containing red earth, pieces of stone, marble, tesserae, pottery and glass as well as plaster from earlier buildings. The pottery from the fill can be dated to the early Byzantine period.

  Two rows of six marble columns divided the hall into a nave and two aisles. The capitals of the columns were carved with pomegranates, flowers and leaves. Wooden beams rested on them to support a gallery above each aisle. The timber roof was tiled. The numerous fragments of flat glass windowpanes indicate the existence of windows.

  The raised central apse was originally reached by two steps. In the area of the apse a large quantity of marble pieces belonging to the altar were scattered, whilst in the rooms flanking the apse the bases of offertory tables were still in situ. An area of about 20 sq m below the main apse was enclosed by a chancel screen. This consisted of twelve chancel screen panels, each either 1.2 m or 1.5 m in length and 60 cm in height, separated by ten square chancel screen posts, some of which were decorated with ivy leaves and had conical tops. The panels were carved on either one or both sides. Two of them bear the motif of a cross flanked by a gazelle. An inscription in Greek on one of the screens indicates that the chancel screen or at least part of it was donated by Leontics, a traveling priest, and his household.

  The most notable feature of this church is a mosaic covering the entire floor. The main field is decorated with a scale pattern in white with a pink and wine-red “heart” for each scale. The central apse and the side rooms are paved with geometric motifs in white, gray, pink and wine-red: rosettes, fleurons and diamonds.

  In the center of the nave is a large rosette consisting of white, wine red, pink and blue-gray stripes, and boxes and swastikas in perspective, treated tri-dimensionally so that the illusionistic effect is extremely similar to that produced by the Hellenistic mosaics of Antioch.

  Below the main apse and in the space enclosed by the chancel, two peacocks are placed symmetrically on either side of an amphora.

  Technically the mosaic is of a high standard for sixth-century Palestine.

  Dauphin and Edelstein, 49–51.

• Phasing

  Pottery found in the fill under the mosaic floor is dated to the 5^th and 6^th centuries, constituting a t.a.q. for this phase. Nothing more is known about this phase.

  https://dig.corps-cmhl.huji.ac.il/churches/nahariya-givat-katsenelson

  Two marble tables, perhaps lecterns, supported by small marble columns, stood inside the chancel. On some of these columns a cross was carved, and the Greek letters lAP appear on three of their capitals. This may be an abbreviation of the donor’s name and title, “John the Archbishop.” This was perhaps John, Archbishop of Ptolemais-Acre to which diocese Nahariya belonged, who participated in the Fifth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in May-June 536 C.E.2 If our assumption is correct, the church at Nahariya was already in existence in the first third of the sixth century, a dating corroborated by the carved marble capitals which are drilled in a manner characteristic of the reign of Emperor Justinian (527-565 C.E.), by the mosaic pavement, the pottery and the bronze candelabra.

  The church at Nahariya was destroyed in a great conflagration. The burning wooden roof beams crashed to the floor, together with the bronze candelabra crosses and chi-rho monograms which were suspended from the ceiling: twenty-five of these were discovered on the floor of the nave in six more or less parallel lines revealing their arrangement when they had hung from the roof. The fire must have been very fierce and prolonged, since it cracked even the marble, scattering fragments or reducing them to dust. In many places the fire and the smoke changed the colors of the mosaics and caused black stains. Fragments of glass windows were scattered and fused. The lead spikes that joined the column drums of the southern aisle melted into lumps that were discovered in the debris. In the southern aisle between the first and second columns from the east, several storage jars, jugs and “Late Roman” bowls stood on the floor – an unusual location for such vessels. It may have been that the population of the settlement fled for protection to the church, bringing with it its supplies of water and food to sustain a siege, as an enemy approached. The church may have been destroyed during the Persian Conquest in 614-617 C.E. A similar fate probably befell the churches at Evron and Shavei-Zion, to the south of Nahariya: they were also destroyed by fire.

  Dauphin and Edelstein, 53

• Bibliogaphy

  Dauphin, Claudine, and Gershon Edelstein. “The Byzantine Church at Nahariyah.” In Ancient Churches Revealed, edited by Yoram Tsafrir, 49–53. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1993.

  Ovadiah, Asher. “Churches of the Age of Justinian in Israel.” In Art and Archaeology in Israel and Neighbouring Countries, edited by Asher Ovadiah, 104–24. London: Pindar Press, 2002.

  ———. “Supplementum to the Corpus of the Byzantine Churches in the Holy Land (Part 1).” Levant 13 (1981): 200–261.