The Sisters of Nazareth Convent

A Roman-period, Byzantine, and Crusader site in central Nazareth

Ken Dark

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000174816
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

This book transforms archaeological knowledge of Nazareth by publishing over 80 years of archaeological work at the Sisters of Nazareth convent, including a detailed re-investigation in the early twenty-first century under the author's direction.

Although one of the world's most famous places and of key importance to understanding early Christianity, Nazareth has attracted little archaeological attention. Following a chance discovery in the 1880s, the site was initially explored by the nuns of the convent themselves – one of the earliest examples of a major programme of excavations initiated and directed by women – and then for decades by Henri Senès, whose excavations (like those of the nuns) have remained almost entirely unpublished. Their work revealed a complex sequence, elucidated and dated by twenty-first century study, beginning with a partly rock-cut Early Roman-period domestic building, followed by Roman-period quarrying and burial, a well-preserved cave-church, and major surface-level Byzantine and Crusader churches. The interpretation and broader implications of each phase of activity are discussed in the context of recent studies of Roman-period, Byzantine, and later archaeology and contemporary archaeological theory, and their relationship to written accounts of Nazareth is also assessed.

The Sisters of Nazareth Convent provides a crucial archaeological study for those wishing to understand the archaeology of Nazareth and its place in early Christianity and beyond.

1. Archaeology without archaeologists

Investigations by the Sisters of Nazareth, 1881–1913

Introduction

For the first 32 years of its investigation, the Sisters of Nazareth site was excavated by the nuns themselves, without any outside assistance. This work included large-scale excavation ahead of the construction of the present convent, a very early example of urban rescue archaeology in the Middle East. As these excavations were initiated, directed and initially published by the convent’s superior, Mère Giraud, they are also one of the first examples of a large-scale archaeological fieldwork project being led by a woman. Working from 1881, Giraud was directing excavations decades before such pioneering archaeologists as Harriet Boyd Hawes in Greece or Gertrude Bell in the Middle East began to excavate (Cooper 2016; Bolger 1994; see also Díaz-Andreu and Sorensen 2005). Importantly, Giraud was then followed by a series of her successors, who had similar leading roles in subsequent excavations at the site until the 1930s.

This phase of archaeological work at the convent, therefore, has an importance in terms of the history of world archaeology, in addition to providing the majority of the mostly hitherto unpublished data from the site. For this reason, the nuns’ excavations will be described here both as a narrative of their work and as a source for the archaeology of the Sisters of Nazareth site itself.

Discoveries in the area of the later Cellar, 1881–1900

When the Sisters of Nazareth bought the land on which the present convent stands on 24 December 1881, they were told by a local woman that it was the site of the ‘tomb of the saint’ and of a ‘great church’ (De Nazareth 1956, 4). These stories, which one might initially assume fanciful or invented for the purposes of negotiating a higher price or pleasing the nuns, excited much interest in the convent when archaeological material was found at the site within a few days. Renée Desmarais (1966, 13–14) presents a convenient summary of the earliest discoveries, which forms the basis of the next paragraph, supplemented by other sources- including unpublished records in the convent archives.

In 1881, a local workman repairing a cistern which was being used at the time in the courtyard of the convent (under the present sacristy of the church) found an almost complete large granite column 3–4 m below ground surface (De Nazareth 1956, 246). As the nuns had only bought the land on 24 December that year, assuming that no work was commissioned by them on Christmas Day, this work was presumably being done between 26 and 31 December and may have been one of the first pieces of maintenance undertaken on their new property. This column and the aperture of a cistern (C4), visible in uncultivated ground near the convent (Desmarais 1966, 173), were the first hints of pre-modern activity at the convent site.

Then, in 1882, while building the eastern convent enclosure wall, large worked stone blocks and other fragments of worked stone were found, which the nuns gave to the Franciscans for their museum at the nearby Church of the Annunciation (Desmarais 1966, 13). The stones were part of a wall that later formed the foundation of the east side of the house in which the nuns lived before the construction of the present convent (De Nazareth 1956, 4). Subsequently, according to a later description by Mère Bécoulet, additional column fragments of what she calls pink and white stone, probably granite, were found in the northwest of the convent garden on the other side of their property (Desmarais 1966, 13) (Figure 1.1).

FIGURE 1.1 The cross-vaulted room (anonymous photograph in the convent archives, reproduced with permission of the Sisters of Nazareth).

However, the first major phase of investigation of the site began with the discovery of an underground space, entered through the opening of a cistern (C1) c. 5 m deep. This was found on 18 October 1884 according to the convent diary. In 1940, Abu Nahle, who as a young workman had witnessed the discovery in 1884, related his reminiscences to Mère Périnet, the then superior (Desmarais 1966, 6). According to this, the convent diary, and other unpublished convent archives, the cistern led into a cross-vaulted room which was filled with what was described as compact mud 2.3 m deep to within 10–20 cm of its ceiling. This deposit may have been alluvial clay, which is present elsewhere on the site, washed in through the same aperture used to access the cistern in 1884. When the cistern had been cleared of this mud, in 1888, Giraud drew a section through the feature (original drawing in convent archive, reproduced in Desmarais 1966, 226 plate 2). This section shows a soil layer extending under the foundation of the wall supporting the cross-vault and, probably, over a layer described as clay, which may be another alluvial deposit. The cross-vaulted room and cistern aperture both remain intact today, confirming the outline of these nineteenth-century descriptions.

Further details of the excavation of the cross-vaulted room were recorded in unpublished convent records. The layer of mud within itcontained fragments of marble showing chisel marks, column fragments, Byzantine coins, sherds of ceramic lamps and one complete ceramic lamp. On the surface of the underlying geological deposits, at the base of what appeared to be a destroyed arch (V12) and the foot of the walls of the cross-vaulted room, there was a layer of harder soil, perhaps a floor, on which there was a heap of green, blue, gold, red and pink tesserae. Spoil from the cross-vaulted room was dumped in the convent garden to the north as work progressed, significantly raising its surface (Desmarais 1966, 181).

The tesserae found in the cross-vaulted room might have fallen, or been removed for later reuse, from an adjacent wall or ceiling (although the cross-vault itself shows no indication of ever having been decorated with mosaic), but it is possible that they had washed in through the aperture. It is, then, impossible to firmly associate them with the cross-vaulted room, although they could have come from this general area of the site. The latter point applies equally, of course, to the coins, lamp and lamp sherds found in the room.

Subsequently, driven by the nuns’ curiosity, exploration of the underground spaces at the site proceeded in the same way into adjacent underground spaces. The account presented here of this excavation, which lasted from 1884 to 1900, is based on that by Desmarais (1966, 12–35), supplemented by unpublished records in the unpublished convent archives. On this basis, it is possible to discern a detailed outline of the progress of the excavation and discoveries made during this time.

The area which the nuns explored next was the Large Cave, immediately northwest of the cross-vaulted room.The nuns noted that a light-well (G1) in the ceiling of the apsidal end of the Large Cave gave plentiful natural light to the space below (De Nazareth 1956, 252) and that under it there were erosion marks suggesting that water had once flowed through the opening.

A flight of stairs (S2) was then discovered leading c. 1.9 m down to the natural rock floor on the southeast of the Large Cave from the cross-vaulted room. This was only partly rock-cut and when the excavators demolished its built element they found a conduit, built of worked stone, feeding into the large cistern north of the entranceway (C2). The conduit was, therefore, of the same date or earlier than the constructed steps forming the entrance to the Large Cave and the same date or later than the large cistern (C2) to its north.

The Large Cave was found to be filled to immediately below the light-well with a soil layer of which the last remaining traces could be identified in the twenty-first-century work as alluvium (Chapter 3). It seems plausible, although uncertain, that this is the same alluvial deposit which also filled the cross-vaulted room. Below the alluvium there was a thick layer of ash, which contained, among other artefacts, a complete but charred pottery lamp (reported and illustrated in Schumacher 1889) (Figure 1.2). The nuns then proceeded until they reached a threshold (S1, leading into V1) on 18 February 1885.

FIGURE 1.2 The Crusader lamp from the ash deposit in the Large Cave (photo K.R. Dark).

Continuing to dig inside the Large Cave, on 5 March 1885 the nuns found three small basins and a marble column fragment (Desmarais 1966, 179). These basins continued the line of the four stone-cut basins remaining visible today on the west of the apsidal end of the Large Cave. As these were on the west side of the cave, and the nuns had already found S1, they must have dug northward along its east side, before removing soil on the west side of the Large Cave. The three small basins were on the uppermost of two steps, resembling stairs, to a total height of 60 cm, although no trace of them remains. The newly discovered basins fed into one another from south to north, an arrangement which can be also seen in the surviving four stone-cut basins. It is logical to interpret this series of seven rock-cut basins as probably a single feature, although whether of a single phase is uncertain.

Beneath these three small basins, which, although described as cut into rock, must have been stone basins rather than rock-cut features, and below an intervening layer, was a grave (T1) cut into the natural rock floor of the Large Cave. This grave is visible today, empty, on the northwest of the Large Cave (Figure 1.3). When excavated the grave contained a crouched burial, with a metal (probably copper alloy) finger ring missing its intaglio. The ring itself was lost (according to an unpublished typescript in the convent archive) in 1914, along with many other artefacts from the excavation.

FIGURE 1.3 The so-called ‘bishop’s grave’, actually part of Tomb 2, in the Large Cave (photo K.R. Dark).

Ornamental gems occur elsewhere in Galilee in third- and fourth-century burial contexts (for a brief list, see Chancey 2005, 216, n. 120), and are known in Second Temple burials from Jerusalem and elsewhere (Kloner and Zissu 2007, 132). This may be what we see here, but because the skeleton wore a signet ring the nuns believed – and many visitors today believe – that this was the burial of a Byzantine or Crusader bishop. The crouched position of the skeleton also suggests a Roman date, as this burial posture would be unusual for a later burial.

This grave was also underneath what the nuns thought was an arch designed to support the ceiling of the cave (V10), although only the bottom three or four stones of this survived when it was identified, resting on the same alluvial deposit as underlaid the niched wall facing the entrance to the Large Cave (Wall J). Whether this feature represented the base of an arch must be uncertain given the scant traces of it identified by the nuns.

To the south of the stepped bench supporting the three small basins, there was another lower, bench-like feature, which seems to have contained two rectilinear negative features resembling graves (Desmarais 1966, 21). It is uncertain whether these were actually graves, additional basins of greater depth or features built for another purpose. Giraud, desperate to find a well, seems to have thought that this was the remains of a pool, an interpretation for which there is no evidence either in the written description of the discovery or on the site as it is visible today.

It was at this point that the nuns found the series of rock-cut steps leading up into the apsidal end of the Large Cave which is visible today, and a rectilinear feature between 24 cm and 25 cm high, perhaps the base for a built screen, which is no longer visible (Desmarais 1966, 22). That the floor of the apsidal end of the cave was higher than that of the south of the Large Cave, flanked on its west with basins and accessed by steps, shows that it was treated in a distinct and presumably special way from the remainder of the space. This interpretation might also be supported by the presence of the light-well in this part of the cave.

Returning to the south of the Large Cave, the conduit beneath the entrance stopped where a wall (their M19) was found on 5 December 1885, when excavation continued on the northeast side of the Large Cave. M19 was built along the north side of cistern C2, and to the south of the wall ther...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Terminology and other preliminary notes
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• General introduction
• 1. Archaeology without archaeologists: Investigations by the Sisters of Nazareth, 1881–1913
• 2. Architectural archaeology: Systematic recording by Henri Senès, 1936–1964
• 3. Bringing the site into the twenty-first century: Archaeological work at the convent, 2006–2010
• 4. An illusion of riches: The Sisters of Nazareth convent museum
• 5. Reinterpreting the Sisters of Nazareth site: Roman-period transformations
• 6. Making a place of pilgrimage: The Sisters of Nazareth site in the Late Roman and Byzantine periods
• 7. The pilgrims return: Crusader and later structures
• 8. Wider implications of the Sisters of Nazareth site for Roman, Byzantine, and Crusader archaeology and history
• 9. Is this the house of Jesus?: Memory, materiality, and the long-term transmission of topographical knowledge
• Appendix 1. Unpublished typescripts and manuscripts deposited by Senès in the convent archive
• Appendix 2. Stratigraphical narrative for layers and features visible in the Cellar
• Appendix 3. Finds in the convent museum with specific findspots within the Cellar provided by labels
• Appendix 4. Architectural fragments in the convent museum
• Appendix 5. Coins in the convent museum