The reliance upon textual frameworks to define individual monastic site histories has important implications for the chronological reliability of several excavations. Thus at Ma’ale Adummim, the monastic site of Martyrios – identified by the phonetic similarity between ‘Martyrios’ and Khirbet el-Muraṣṣasṣ – was assigned a fifth-century foundation date and sixth-century expansion phase based on direct correlation of the archaeological material with the chronology proposed by Cyril of Scythopolis’ Life of Euthymios and Life of
Theodosios.204
Whilst the extant epigraphic documentation may validate this identification – accepting the inscription as a sixth-century feature – the accepted chronology of the site’s monastic occupational history as one characterised by two successive periods of construction in the fifth and sixth centuries, is more difficult to determine given that the dating of the excavated material and structural features was heavily informed by the chronological
frameworks proscribed by the textual tradition.205 The pattern is replicated in several other
cases throughout the Judean Desert;206 here, it has served to sanction a (perceived) pattern of
flat ‘single-phase’ chronologies at individual monastic or pilgrim-church sites which show no
significant signs of activity or structural enhancement, following the sixth century.207 This
lack of nuanced chronological observation has reduced present analysis of monastic-pilgrim cult sites in the early Islamic period to an austere binary opposition between ‘abandonment’ or ‘continuity’, which negates more detailed observations of potential changes to the spatial
204 Magen 1993: 170-196. See also the comments in note 162.
205 See, for example, the comments of the post 614 phases which are credited to Arab squatter occupation
Magen 1993: 184-185, 196.
206 Thus the site known as the ‘Laura of St. John the Hesychast’ was identified and phased primarily through
textual frameworks, see Patrich 1993. Similar issues also pervade the studies of the Euthymios monastery and the monastery of Mar Chariton see Hirschfeld 1993 and Hirschfeld 2000. As discussed earlier in the introduction, this study cannot remedy the flaws of the published data fully.
207 Patrich 1993: 233 where phasing of the Laura of Sabas is correlated with Cyril of Scythopolis’ chronological
framework. Similar approaches characterise the Hermitage of John the Hesychast, see Patrich 1993: 315-337. For Kastellion, see Wright 1961: 1-21.
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layout or social function of monasteries following the mid-seventh century. The monastic site of Kursi provides one characteristic example of this approach. Although criticisms of the original 614 destruction date assigned by Vassilios Tzaferis have been levied by David Stacey, who has proposed continued occupation at the site into the ninth century, the insufficiencies of the excavation reports do not permit more detailed appraisal of the nature of
its seventh or eighth-century occupational sequences.208 Discussions of sites such as the
Martyrios monastery and Shepherd’s Fields are similarly restricted; beyond our ability to verify their survival into the late-seventh and tenth centuries respectively, we can say little
about the nature or characteristics of their post-Byzantine, Umayyad or Abbasid phases.209
Approaching monastic communities as entities characterised by homogenous social and political roles, an issue that will be raised repeatedly throughout this study, is also problematic. Reliance on the narratives of Cyril of Scythopolis and John Moschos, whose characterisations are crafted to emphasise the mimetic parallels between the lives of all monastic figures, has served to reinforce approaches to monasticism or pilgrimage as socially
and economically static entities.210 Archaeological interpretations in the region, framed by
this pervasive ideology and informed by hagiography, often perpetuate this basic assumption. Where change is identified, as with the emergence of oil presses or features associated with artisanal production, as with the sites of Kursi and Horvat Berachot, these developments are virtually always perceived in negative terms and attributed to the activities of non-monastic
‘squatter occupation’ or interpreted as indicators of endemic economic or social decline.211
208 Stacey 2004: 15-16.
209 For a critique of the dating of the Martyrios monastery, see Magness 2011: 86- 87.
210 In Binns 1994: 99-120 and Hirschfeld 1992: 69-111 again we may observe the use of hagiography to define
the social and economic profiles of Judean Desert monasticism over a period spanning more than 150 years.
211 Thus the appearance of oil presses and other industrial activity in Kursi was seen as indicative of a post-
crisis phase: Tzaferis 1983: 16. A further example of a church or cult sites where later phases are assigned to squatter occupation is that of Horvat Berachot whereby the presence of Arabic inscriptions – probably Islamic – are attributed to Arab squatters based, presumably, on the assumption that the Arab conquest precluded the possibility of monastic continuity. See Chapter Three for the problems with this approach. Similarly, the internal re-organisations of the monastic church of Kursi, which saw the sealing of several entrances between the north wing and the basilica and the emergence of an oil press is interpreted as a response to Sassanid
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Yet it is evident from several sites that spatial organisation in monasteries and cult sites frequently responded to the demands of changing socio-devotional contexts. At Ma’ale
Adummim, despite the difficulties presented by the published chronology,212 excavators
identified a sixth-century reconstruction phase to improve access to the cave-crypt.213 A
similar process, which appears to have accelerated in the sixth century and would imply a response to growing social demand for access to relics in Palestine, can be observed in the North Church at Shivta where the main single-apsed basilica was redeveloped into a tri-
apsidal form to facilitate access to its reliquaries.214
This pattern of punctuated development within monastic space highlights the limitations of static chronological models which hinder our ability to identify episodes of post-Byzantine renovation or use. Sensitive assessments of dating formulas and stylistic criteria in epigraphic inscriptions, spearheaded by Leah Di Segni over the past twenty years, have contributed immensely to redefining the parameters of the debate and outlining examples of continued investment into Palestine’s Christian structural landscape following
the mid-seventh century.215 However, there are some limitations to this approach which need
to be stressed. The general reliance on dated inscriptions to identify post-Byzantine activity may offer a rather restricted view of monastic continuities in the region especially at sites where spatial changes or construction were not embellished with dated dedications. Equally,
destruction, see Tzaferis 1983:15. The presence of oil presses in church complexes (especially atria) is, however, known from other contexts with the archaeological material suggesting that they were incorporated into the church complexes whilst the building still actively functioned for liturgical worship. For a study of the oil presses at Horvat Beit Loya, see Patrich and Tsafrir 1990: 287-300. The presence of iconophobic intervention in the mosaic schemes of the church would imply that it continued to function as a site of liturgical celebration into the mid-eighth century. On the church of Horvat Beit Loya, see Patrich and Tsafrir 1993: 265- 272. The dating of the iconophobic activity in Palestinian church floors is discussed in Appendix D.
212 See the discussion pages 26-30.
213 Magen 1993: 178-181. See also Magen and Talgam 1990: 99-100.
214 See Margalit 1990: 321-334 for a discussion of this church and comparison with other regional examples.
These developments are paralleled in the examples of Rehovot-in-the-Negev and Horvat Hesheq and the possible addition of a new basilica to the Octagonal Terrace Church of Umm Qays in the late seventh or eighth century, see Vriezen 1992 and Vriezen, Wagner-Lux, Mulder and Guineé 2001. The practice is also known from later contexts, as with the incorporation of a mihrāb in the Church of the Kathisma in the eighth or early ninth century, see the discussions by Avner 2007 and Avner 2011. Earlier studies of the church appear in Avner 1993, Avner 2000 and Avner 2003.
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the inadequacy of the broader published archaeological corpus, which presents a catalogue of sites framed by traditional interpretations and chronologies, inhibits more successful attempts
at contextualising such examples on supra-regional scale.216 A potential resolution to this
issue, focussed on the re-dating of inscriptions, has been acknowledged by scholars in the field and will require ongoing re-evaluation of the existing archaeological corpus in future
years.217 This will, however, only contribute to redefining broader settlement histories of
sites. As discussed above, even the most refined re-analysis cannot rectify the loss of data associated with truncated post-Byzantine phases which occurred due to poorly stratified or architecturally-focussed excavation strategies. The collective limitations of the published corpus, however, makes more detailed re-appraisals and re-dating of this material presently unfeasible. Publications of excavations conducted within modern Israel and Jordan remain inconsistent and are not always of sufficient quality to permit a reinterpretation of the
diagnostic data that underpins their published phasing.218 Among the major monasteries and
cult-shrines excavated throughout the twentieth century, only a handful are published in finalised form (though not always with sufficient description of the diagnostic material or stratigraphy) and, among these, many relate to excavations completed prior to the 1980s
which are often underpinned by outmoded dating criteria for diagnostic material. In other
examples, focus has been directed towards identifying the foundation date of a site rather than outlining a more long term perspective of its occupational history; thus, in cases such as
216 Stylistic developments in epigraphic formulas has been a notable and publicised casualty of this trend as
poorly defined dating sequences, particularly in relation to seventh-century phases, have limited our ability to observe evolutions in epigraphic conventions – which may reveal further examples of foundation post 600 – between the Byzantine and early Islamic periods see Di Segni 2003: 257-258.
217 See the comments of Di Segni 2009: 359-360.
218 The published accounts of the excavations at the Martyrios monastery and Shepherd’s Fields offer only brief
discussions of the ceramic and numismatic data; in the former case only a photograph of some of the excavated wares has been published. For Martyrios, see Magen 1993: 192-195 and Shepherd’s Fields, see Tzaferis 1975. Magen assigned this ware to a pre-614 phase. Magness 2011: 87-98 suggests, however, a mid- seventh century date for this ware. A further issue is the delay in the publication of final reports. The excavations of the Nea Church in Jerusalem undertaken by Avigad between 1962-1982 which was not published until Gutfeld 2012: 141-267.
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Khan Saliḅa, we know nothing of its post-Byzantine material sequences.219 Preliminary
reports are far better represented, but often, as with the case of Umm Qays, offer only
impressionistic views of the results and are difficult to critique.220 To this may be added
excavations at monastic-pilgrimage sites – Deir Ghazali, Mevo Modi’im, Horvath Qasra and Horvat Hanot – discussed in notes and bulletin reports, which have yet to be fully published
and expanded.221 These collective limitations circumscribe a very limited opportunity for the
renegotiation of several site chronologies – presenting the possibility, particularly with excavations conducted in the early twentieth century, where much data was discarded, that several of the sites may never be fully integrated with more recent research and
archaeological models.222 These limitations mean that, as discussed in the introduction, this
study can only offer tentative revaluations of this material.