Ḥorvat Beth Loya - Church

General description: 

The entire church was originally paved with mosaics (ca. 220 m2). The human and animal figures are composed on average of 90-130 per dm2, whilst much smaller tesserae have been utilised for the heads and limbs of human figures, where use was made of opus vermiculatum (Patrich, J. and Tsafrir, Y., 1993, p. 268; Madden, A.M., 2014, no. 24, pp. 26-28). Complete pavements were recovered in the basilica (nave and aisles), chapel, baptistery, vestibule, suggested bell tower. Remnants discovered in the narthex. The mosaics of the church has two distinguished medallions with figurative fishermen scenes (isles), other mosaics of the basilica and the narthex had the anthropomorphic and zoomorphic images (mainly damaged by iconoclasts), while others consist of geometric patterns. Six Greek inscriptions were recovered.

History: 

The mosaics should be dated to ca. 500 and be seen as part of the original construction and decoration stage of the church complex. Most of the human figures, animals and some other figurative images, were heavily destroyed by iconoclasts, most probably in the first half of the 8th century following the edict of Caliph Yazid II in 721 C.E. It was sugggested, that the demaged parts were carefuly repaired, imidiately after their destruction, in non figurative order with the original tesserae, most probably by the Christians themselves (Patrich, J. and Tsafrir, Y., 1993, p. 265). Other damages: the mosaic of the nave were further damaged when a deep fissure was made due to grave-digging activities during the Muslim period; the mosaics in the baptistery were damaged at a certain point (still at the time of the usage of the church?), when the baptismal font was lowered into the ground and screens were added around into the mosaic floor. Otherwise, the mosaic pavements are preserved in a relatively good condition.

Abbreviation for Journals and Series

Decorations

Item number Location in the architectural complex View
1 Nave View
2 Aisles View
3 Narthex View
4 Chapel View
5 Baptistery View
6 Vestibule View
7 Bell Tower View