In Israel, archaeologists have found the graves of women worshiped as superior or deaconesses in the remains of a church. The basilica from the early Christian era also houses the mass graves of a plague epidemic.
Archaeologists have uncovered one of the earliest and largest known basilicas in the country near the southern Israeli port city of Ashdod. Particularly on the find from the fourth or fifth century are mass graves with inscriptions for female clergy, according to the Israeli media on Wednesday, citing the daily newspaper Haaretz informed. In the church, a three-aisled basilica with several annex buildings and chapels, discovered in 2017, floor mosaics were found with crosses, geometric motifs and animal scenes as well as a dozen inscriptions that pay equal tribute to men and women.
Among them a “Holy Mother Sophronia”, possibly the superior of a nearby monastery, as well as several deaconesses. This makes the basilica unique, according to archaeologist Joseph Patrich from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Meanwhile, it is not known to whom the church was consecrated. The researchers found a tomb in the apse, presumably from the late Roman period before the basilica was built, with a single skeleton. The simple burial without artifacts is typical for early Christian saints, said the anthropologist Hila May from Tel Aviv. According to May, these are the remains of a woman. Other graves under the basilica were used again at a later date. The dead placed in mass graves may point to a plague epidemic that crippled the Byzantine Empire around the sixth century.
The hasty repairs to the floor mosaics damaged by the grave openings and the use of lime to cover the dead also point to a time of crisis and mass extinction. Lime was used to contain odors and contamination. According to ancient historians, the epidemic, named after Emperor Justinian (around 482 to 565), claimed millions of lives and contributed significantly to the decline of the Eastern Roman Empire. So far, however, there has been little archaeological evidence of its effects. The Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III. expressed aloud Haaretz the wish that the church be preserved and made accessible to scholars and pilgrims. First, the finds were covered again to protect them from the elements and vandalism.