A10 Umm al-Jimal — Northeast Church

Summary information

• Location

  GPS coordinates: 32.32898, 36.37256

  Structure is partially visible in Google maps.

• Description

  The church was a small basilica with three naves (20.50 x 11.40 m) with a projecting apse (opening 5.05 m, depth 5.10 m).

  It was accessed from the west by two doors which gave one on the central nave, the other on the south aiosle. The northern aisle also had three doors on the exterior; another door was arranged in east half east of the south wall.

  The naves were divided by two rows of pillars surmounted by arches. The clerestory walls of the nave and the eastern end of the side aisles had rectangular; an axial window illuminated the apse, whose floor was raised by two steps in relation to that from the nave.

  To the south-west, a small rectangular room (6.75 x 3.95 m) attached to the church opened onto the south aisle.  

  The remains of a synthronon (0.50 m wide x 0.50 m high) were revealed in the apse. A chancel screen, carved with a circular medallion with a cross pattern in the center and a cross in the upper right corner, was found during excavations.

  Anne Michel, Les Eglises d’Epoque Byzantine et Umayyade de La Jordanie V-VIII Siecle (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001), 176.

• Phasing

  According to the typology of the ceramics which were collected in the floor of the apse, R. Schick attributes the construction of the church in the Byzantine period. The recovery of “umayyade” shards from the floor of the nave attest to an occupation of the building until that time.

  Anne Michel, Les Eglises d’Epoque Byzantine et Umayyade de La Jordanie V-VIII Siecle (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001), 176.

  Information about the northeast church is confusing. The floors in the apse contained only Byzantine pottery, but not Umayyad, while the floors elsewhere all contained Umayyad sherds. It would appear that the church was built in the Byzantine period and continued in use in the Umayyad period.

  Robert Schick, The Christian Communities of Palestine from Byzantine to Islamic Rule: A Historical and Archaeological Study, Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam (Princeton, N.J: Darwin Press, 1995), 469.

  The North East Church, built in the late fifth century, suffered two earthquake collapses in the sixth. After the second midcentury reconstruction the apse was abandoned, while the nave continued in use.

  Bert De Vries, “The Umm El-Jimal Project, 1981-1992,” Annual of the Department of Antiquities 37 (1993): 447.

  The continued abandonment of the apse may be the result of a squaring off of the sanctuary in parallel to the three churches excavated at Khirbet es-Samra.

  Bert De Vries, “The Umm El-Jimal Project, 1981-1992,” Annual of the Department of Antiquities 37 (1993): 448.

• Bibliogaphy

  Butler, Howard Crosby, and Enno Littmann. Syria: Publications of the Princeton University Archaeological Expeditions to Syria in 1904-1905 and 1909. Vol. 2:A. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1919.

  De Vries, Bert. “The Umm El-Jimal Project, 1981-1992.” Annual of the Department of Antiquities 37 (1993): 433–60.

  Michel, Anne. Les Eglises d’Epoque Byzantine et Umayyade de La Jordanie V-VIII Siecle. Turnhout: Brepols, 2001.

  Piccirillo, Michele. Chiese e mosaici della Giordania settentrionale. Studium Biblicum Franciscanum. Collectio minor ; no. 30. Jerusalem: Franciscan Print. Press, 1981.

  Schick, Robert. The Christian Communities of Palestine from Byzantine to Islamic Rule: A Historical and Archaeological Study. Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam. Princeton, N.J: Darwin Press, 1995.