Khirbet Banaya (Hazor Ashdod) - Church

A long mosaic inscription. Its two lines (marked A and B for the sake of convenience) ran along the eastern border of the floor’s westernmost carpet: a geometrical panel enclosing at its center a large cross in a round medallion, with Inscription no. 4 arranged between its arms. Another large cross, flanked by two birds, surmounts the inscription. A rectangular frame of black and orange tesserae, 430×45 cm, encloses the text, and a similar line separates the two lines of script. The south end of the frame is broken, but an old photograph, taken at the time of the discovery, shows the remains of the frame on the right-hand side and proves that no letters were lost. The characters, in black tesserae, are square, except for the omicron, which is mostly round, and a phi in l. 1. The letters in line A are mostly of equal height, 9–10 cm, but several of the iotas and omicrons, as well as an omega, are smaller (down to 6 cm) and floating above the line. In the abbreviated word ἁγιωτ(άτου), the tau is small and overhanging the omega. In line B, the height of the characters is less regular. Stigma is used to mark abbreviations, as well as a small horizontal stroke above the last letter, ypsilon, of the truncated ἔτου(ς) at the end of line A. The numerals are also marked with an overhanging horizontal stroke. Each line begins with a Greek cross, and in the name Ἀντωνίου in line A the last ypsilon is cut across by a horizontal line so that it appears monogrammed with a cross.