Update

Our friends at the Hippos (Sussita) Excavations Project have made available schematics of the churches excavated at Hippos to date. Our thanks for these and permission to use them. They allow side-by-side comparison of the churches and can be the basis for comparative research.

As with any schematic drawings, details are adjusted for the sake of uniformity and in view of common usages. So, published drawings must always be consulted on minor points. For example, the schematic for the Northeast Church shows five columns for both aisles. What we found in the excavation was a highly disturbed site with six columns (one missing) on the north and four on the south. The posited fifth column on the south accommodates a standard spanning distance between the columns; but there is no evidence for the western-most column in the field (at least, not yet).

As to the “Archaeology of Liturgy” project, work has slowed as I am teaching this semester and have taken on some other temporary professional duties. The “difficulties” in Israel are also a factor. I am looking forward to resuming work more fully in the summer of 2024.

With the addition of church sites from the Syrian Hauran and from Southern Phoenicia, the dataset for the project is now complete. When I went to the Albright in the spring of 2023, my goal was to develop a regional dataset of basilical churches through the comparative study of which I hoped to understand more fully the diversity of floor plans and annexes in the churches at Hippos. By the time I left Jerusalem in May, I had an initial list of 104 churches, mostly basilicas, which would form the dataset for my comparative analysis. I had also gathered preliminary and/or final excavations reports on each and had begun to summarize them in a common format.

Subsequently, I have worked through all the materials (translating as needed) and have summarized them on a map with links to web pages for each church. Of the initial group, 97 different structures are in the dataset all within 100 km of Hippos. Phase 1 of the project is complete.

After a literature review of theories about the development of the forms of Late Antique churches, I will collate all this data into charts and from those charts seek to develop an analytical protocol for understanding the particular layout of a church within the regional context defined by the dataset.

It had been my intent to do the rest of this work at the Albright in Jerusalem starting next week. However, the security situation is such that I have cancelled the trip. Instead, I will do the work here in the states over the next months and propose a paper outlining my conclusions for the next meeting of ASOR in November of 2024.

I have now posted materials for the first phase of the research I am doing into the Archaeology of Liturgy. Using a Google Map, I have linked 25 church sites from Palaestina Secunda including plans, summary data and initial analysis. This set is the first of three blocks of materials that I am preparing based on the work I did in the spring of 2023 at the Albright in Jerusalem. The other two are the northern part of Arabia and the southern part of the Syrian Hauran. Together they comprise the dataset for the writing I will do when I return to Jerusalem later in the year.