When Israeli authorities wanted to expand the Megiddo Prison, they tapped their captive labor pool and put dozens of inmates to work digging inside the compound here that is ringed with coiled razor wire and guard towers.
As is common practice in Israel, the site underwent a check for possible archaeological ruins before heavy equipment could be moved in. Last week, the inmates discovered a Christian religious site that the Israel Antiquities Authority said may date to the third century and could be the earliest Christian church unearthed in the Holy Land, and possibly one of the earliest in the world.
Dozens of journalists were invited into the prison on Sunday to view two well-preserved tile mosaics, which include detailed inscriptions in Greek and which the antiquities authority said served as the floor of the church.
PHOTO: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
"It is for sure the earliest church in Israel that we know of," said Yotam Tepper, the archaeologist in charge of the dig, which began seven months ago.
The announcement was met with deep skepticism from some scholars of early Christianity.
The traditional view is that Christian churches did not begin to appear in the region until the fourth century, the result of Emperor Constantine's edict in the year 313, early in the fourth century, that Christians could worship freely in the Roman Empire.
Before that, Christians were often persecuted. They worshipped clandestinely and were not able to build public houses of worship, these scholars say.
"For people who study this, it would be very hard to accept that there is a Christian church here that dates to the third century," said Joe Zias, an anthropologist and a former curator with the antiquities authority.
Zias, who has not seen the site, added, "My gut feeling is that we are looking at a Roman building that may have been converted to a church at a later date."
When identifying the earliest churches in the region, scholars most often point to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the spot where tradition holds that Jesus was born, and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, built where Jesus was crucified and entombed, according to tradition.
These churches, built a few years after Constantine's edict, have been damaged and rebuilt many times over the centuries, and were well documented by the early chroniclers of the Christian church.
At Megiddo on Sunday, beneath a black tarpaulin, Israeli prisoners in brown jumpsuits washed down the mosaic while Tepper and his colleagues from the antiquities authority made their case.
Pottery shards from cooking pots and wine jugs resting on the mosaic have been dated to the late third century, suggesting the mosaic -- and presumably the church -- was already in place at that time, he said. The style of the Greek lettering in the three inscriptions point to the same period, he said, and the structure does not follow the traditional building pattern for churches that emerged in the fourth century.
The floor is about 9m by 4.5m and has two mosaics, consisting of small black and white tiles in geometric patterns. Two fish, a symbol widely used in early Christianity, adorn one.
In the center of the floor is a base that may have supported a structure used in worship services, Tepper said. Nearby, one inscription reads, "The God-loving Aketous has offered this table to the God Jesus Christ, as a memorial," according to a preliminary translation by the antiquities authority.
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