A17 Al Khirbah As Samra — John the Baptist Church

Summary information

• Location

  GPS coordinates: 32.17993, 36.1626

  Structure is partially visible in Google maps.
  
  

• Description

  Originally, the church had the interior volume of a large hall rectangular, divided into three naves by two rows of heavy pillars. The space was progressively cut by the creation of two rooms at the top of the aisles, then the transformation of the north aisle in a separate chapel.

  Jean-Baptiste Humbert and A. Desreumaux, “Huit Campagnes de Fouilles au ‘Khirbet Es-Samra’ (1981-1989),” Revue biblique 97, no. 2 (1990): 261.

  The church was a basilica with three naves (17.25 x 14.70 m) which ended in a rectangular sanctuary inscribed between two side pieces. Contrary to other churches on the site, it was built of limestone. The building currently presents a rather complex state which is the result of several revisions.

  It was originally accessed from the west by three doors which opened onto the central nave and the side aisles. The central door appears slightly offset to the north and its uprights show traces of reworking; the northern one was blocked at an unknown date.

  The naves were divided into two rows of five pillars, which were obviously reinforced, and which supported arches. The nave ended in a rectangular sanctuary inscribed between two side rooms (3.50 x 2.50 m). Chancel screens were added to the side rooms in a later phase. Later, a room was fitted out in the northern aisle by the insertion of walls between the pillars of the first four spans; it was accessed from the central nave by a door located in the second bay.

  Several annexes backed onto the church to the south and the west: to the west was a funerary vault which opened simultaneously on the north side of the church and on the outside; it was a rectangular room subdivided by an arcade and which contained six skeletons.

  The sanctuary, which extended to the last span of the nave, was raised twice without its surface being modified. It was accessed by a doorway placed in the axis from the nave; the state of the stylobate no longer made it possible to specify if there were accesses from the aisles.

  A two-step synthronon was added during a reworking in the rectangular sanctuary. Four cavities in the center of the sanctuary indicated still the location of the altar table which had four feet.

  A reliquary, sealed by a marble disc in a coated cylindrical loculus, was placed between the altar supports. The loculus contained a limestone reliquary in the form of a small sarcophagus and a globular vase in glass The reliquary-sarcophagus had a semi-cylindrical lid with a cross at the ends, and a hole drilled in the center. The excavators supposed oil was infused into it, which was then collected in the globular vase – similar to a light bulb – by an orifice provided at the base of one of the walls of the tank, but N. Duval considers the globular vase as a second reliquary buried on the first.

  Belatedly, masonry benches were added against the western facade and the northern wall of the church.

  The floor of the church has known at least three states. The original plaster floor was replaced by a paving which reused architectural elements, some of which were registered. It was covered by a mosaic, polychrome in the central nave, and white in the side aisles.

  The carpet of the nave, surrounded by a geometric border, with a kantharos at its western extremity, which succeeded, in the following registers, two representations of cities in an enclosure, an inscription, an open cage, and a circular medallion, whose border included the inscription of dedication. A third inscription ran along the border at the end orientate the pavement.

  Most of the figured motifs of the mosaic have been destroyed and have not been repaired. Excavators attribute with likelihood of these destructions to iconoclasm: mutilations are very localized and therefore cannot be attributed to wear; only a few plant motifs remain stylized scattered on the carpet.

  Anne Michel, Les Eglises d’Epoque Byzantine et Umayyade de La Jordanie V-VIII Siecle (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001), 197–99.

  The mosaic of the central nave consists of a single carpet where the various decorative elements and the inscriptions in Greek were found in the field. We guess animal motifs destroyed by the iconoclasts; but two representations of cities surrounded by circular ramparts (1.50 m in diameter) have remained almost intact; they represent a theme, the city, little attested in the iconography on mosaics. Closer to the cancel, a large rosette 2.50 m in diameter bears a long inscription in two lines. It indicates the patronage of the church (Saint John the Baptist) and the date of the laying of the pavement through the name of the consecrating bishop, Theodore, known by the texts, as sitting at Bostra from 634. The repair of our building would therefore only have taken place shortly before the middle of the seventh century. However, because the dated mosaic covers an older, undated paving, it can be argued that the construction of the churches of Samra is contemporary with the economic and political development of Hauran, under Justinian (beginning of the 6th century).

  Michele Piccirillo, “Ricerca storico-archeologica in Giordania II (1982).,” Liber Annuus 32 (1982): 499–500.

• Phasing

  The building knew a period of usage which testified to numerous revisions. The church, which is considered as the oldest on the site, would have been built at the Justinian period; it was then a basilica three naves ending in a rectangular sanctuary inscribed between the extension of the aisles. The plaster floor was soon replaced by a paving.

  Nexct ancillary were arranged rooms on either side of the sanctuary, erecting chancel screens at the east end of the aisles. Next came the mosaic, in 638, under the episcopate of Theodore de Bosra. The burial vault in facade was built shortly after, because the typology of the ceramic collected in this piece refers to the Umayyad era.

  The addition of benches against the walls of the church intervened after the laying of the mosaic, perhaps leading the blockage of the northern door of the church, which opened onto the vault.

  In a last phase, which we do not know if it coincides with Christian use of the building, an independent room was developed in the northern collateral. This change is attributed by excavators to the Umayyad period, but it must be subsequent to the installation of the benches in the nave and the arrangement of the funerary vault. The church was used at least until the time when the iconoclastic destructions intervened, that is to say at least the beginning of the eighth century.

  Anne Michel, Les Eglises d’Epoque Byzantine et Umayyade de La Jordanie V-VIII Siecle (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001), 197–99.

  The first church of S. John the Baptist (A) had a mosaic laid above the original flagstone pavement around 635, based on an inscription in the mosaic that refers to Theodore, the metropolitan of Busra attested from inscriptions in Rihab in 635. The mosaic had images that suffered iconoclastic damage that was not repaired. The north aisle of the church was blocked off from the nave by walls built between the columns. The south aisle, however, was not blocked off. Other late walls were built in the northeast sacristy. These walls apparently date to the Umayyad period. The fact that the mosaics were not repaired suggests that the church was no longer used as a church then, and that the later occupants did the damage.

  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), 377.

• Bibliogaphy

  Desreumaux, Alain, and Jean-Baptiste Humbert. “La Première Campagne de Fouilles à Kh. Es-Samra: 1981.” Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 26 (1982): 173–82.

  Humbert, Jean-Baptiste, and A. Desreumaux. “Huit Campagnes de Fouilles au ‘Khirbet Es-Samra’ (1981-1989).” Revue biblique 97, no. 2 (1990): 252–69.

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

  Piccirillo, Michele. “Ricerca storico-archeologica in Giordania I (1980-1981).” Liber Annuum 31 (1981): 323–58.

  ———. “Ricerca storico-archeologica in Giordania II (1982).” Liber Annuus 32 (1982): 461–527.

  ———. The Mosaics of Jordan. American Center of Oriental Research Publications ; No. 1. Amman, Jordan: American Center of Oriental Research, 1993.

  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.