Archaeologists have discovered images of heaven, peacocks, and a text in which a former slave thanks God for liberation in a 6th-century church.
Specialists from the Museum of Archeology of Hatay (Turkey) are excavating a 6th-century Christian temple in Arsuz in southern Anatolia. By the standards of archaeologists, traces of the church were found not so long ago: in 2007, a resident of the city decided to plant orange seedlings in his garden and came across strange ruins. Since then, they have been cleaned up. It became clear that the structure was a three-aisled basilica. A basilica is a type of rectangular building typical of Christian churches of the Byzantine period. Its walls have not survived, but the mosaic floors of the temple remained in good condition.
It was thanks to the mosaic inscriptions that it became clear that the basilica bore the name of the Church of the Three Apostles. This temple is mentioned in the sources, so that dating to the 6th century can be considered quite reliable. This season, archaeologists continued to clear the mosaics of the basilica and found an unusual image. On it are heaven, peacocks (not the most familiar figure for Christian churches), and in the center there is an inscription that says that the mosaic was made by a former slave in gratitude for the liberation.
In general, mosaic is not an easy task, time-consuming and money-consuming, moreover, it requires special skills. Therefore, most likely, the former slave was a mosaicist even before his release and did the work on his own. Alternative: he could get rich and hire a skilled craftsman.
It is worth paying attention to the place of the find. In the 6th century AD, the settlement, which is now called Arsuz, belonged to Antioch: there was a port through which sea communications went with it – once the largest city in the province. In some works, Arsuz is attributed to Iskenderun, but most historians believe that this is not entirely correct. Iskenderun was founded by Alexander the Great and named it Alexandretta (Little Alexandria). Arsuz, for a long time, did not have a proper name at all, since it was considered the port of Antioch (although the distance there is quite decent).
Antioch is certainly one of the most important places in the history of the region. The city was founded by the commander of Alexander the Great Seleucus Nicator and named it in honor of his father Antiochus. True, the son of Seleucus was also called Antiochus, but the main version still speaks of his father. Seleucus belonged to those commanders of Alexander, whom historians call the Diadochi – those who, after the death of the illustrious conqueror, divided his empire. Wars between the Diadochi went on for more than 20 years – from 323 to 301 BC. Seleucus, as the name implies, eventually became the founder of the Seleucid Empire, and Antioch was its capital for a long time.
Thanks to the conquests of Tigran II, Antioch for some time became part of Greater Armenia (Tigran even moved the capital of his state there for some time), but already in the same 1st century BC, the province fell under the rule of Rome. Around the 4th century AD, Antioch becomes the center of the Christian religion. Historians believe that it was there that the followers of the new religion were first called Christians. And allegedly visiting Antioch just convinced the emperor Julian the Apostate that the revival of paganism is impossible (this statement is extremely difficult to verify).
Obviously, Christianization took place with the active construction of temples. The main one is the Great Temple, founded by Constantine the Great, and finally completed by his successor Constantius II. But besides him, many other churches were built. The three-nave basilica is a fairly common type of Christian church in Antioch.
It must be added that Antioch and its environs suffered regularly from earthquakes. It is known from sources that the first (documented) happened in 148 BC, under the Seleucids. The next catastrophe occurred in 37 AD, under the Roman emperor Caligula. But the earthquake of 115 almost killed the emperor Trajan, who at that time was in Antioch and was preparing for a campaign in Parthia. The emperor (who was then 61 years old) barely managed to jump out of the window of the collapsing building, but many of his retinue were not so fast, which is why they died. In addition, the city burned repeatedly. It is clear that with such a series of catastrophes, the archaeological layers turned out to be partially mixed, but most importantly, hidden under other buildings or soil. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the fact that an orange grove could bloom over the basilica of the 6th century in the 21st century.
Photo: Mosaic with thank you note and peacocks / ©AA
