
Summary information
GPS coordinates: 32.32475, 36.37095
Structure is partly visible in Google maps.
The church was a small basilica with a single nave (10.00 x 26.30 m) accessible from the west by a portico with columns opening by two doors on the nave. To the south, a second door opened on three rectangular rooms leaning against the church, and on a courtyard around which were development of residential buildings.
The nave was punctuated by five transverse arcades which supported the roof slabs. The east end of the chapel is unusual for a building with a single nave. It has an apse inscribed between two very elongated rooms (about 4.70 x 1.50 m). The southern one had at its eastern end a door opening on a small courtyard, of roughly triangular plan, delimited by various buildings and by the city wall.
Inscriptions
The church owes its name to the character quoted in an inscription engraved on the lintel of the door of a room in the southern annex:
Masechos, (son of) Aoueidos built [this church].
Anne Michel, Les Eglises d’Epoque Byzantine et Umayyade de La Jordanie V-VIII Siecle (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001), 169–71.
The church is an undivided nave of six bays separated by arches of over a six metres span. It has a deep-set semi-circular apse between long, narrow side chambers, and a colonnaded porch of four bays, closed at one end and open at the other. This church, with one other in the city, has the unusual feature of a double west portal, and the columns of the porch are so spaced, with reference to the wall and pier at the south end, that one column stands in the middle to accommodate the two doorways. The porch is a paved platform raised about 60 cm. above the street. There is a doorway in the south wall of the church leading into a room which forms a part of the group of residential buildings about the courtyard, or cloister, on the south side of the church. The prothesis and diaconicum are long rooms of extreme narrowness, being hardly more than a metre wide. The room on the south side of the apse, which was probably the prothesis, has a doorway in its eastern end opening out into the space between the church and the town wall.
Howard Crosby Butler 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), 176-177.
- Not discussed.
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.
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.
Characteristics
- Inscribed mono-apsidal apse with rooms on both sides of the apse
- Not excavated.
- No information
- No information
- Two entrances from the west
- A south entrance from side rooms
- Attached south rooms
- None
Constantinopolitan
- Protruding apse
- Entrances from the east on either side of the apse
- Π-shaped chancel
- Multiple entrances on all sides
- Ambo on the south
- Exterior chapel to the north
Syrian
- Π-shaped chancel
- Inscribed mono-apsidal
- Rooms on both sides of the apse
- West entrance
- Ambo on south
- Baptistry in room south of the apse or in the south aisle
- Separate south chapel
- South entrances from side rooms/chapels
Roman
- Τ-shaped or bar-shaped chancel
- Tri-apsidal usually inscribed
- Altars in the side apses
- Relics and Reliquaries
- Ambo to the north
- Baptistry outside off the atrium or the north aisle
- Marble furnishings (high status imperial association) and imported fine wares
- Decorative elements on chancel screens [specify]
- Separate north chapel
Syrian to Roman conversion
- Τ-shaped or bar-shaped chancel replacing Π-shaped chancel
- Side apses inserted into rooms adjacent to the main apse
- Separate north chapel (suppressed south chapel)
- Liturgical furniture with decorative motifs like those at St. Clemente in Rome
Classification
Syrian
-
Π-shaped chancel - Inscribed mono-apsidal
- Rooms on both sides of the apse
- West entrance (only two)
-
Ambo on south Baptistry in room south of the apse or in the south aisleSeparate south chapel- South entrance
sfrom side rooms/chapels
The Archaeology of Liturgy Project reflects research conducted at the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem during 2023.