The numerous artificial underground spaces found below Late Roman and Byzantine structures can be divided into three sub-phases, identifiable because the construction of some of these features involved cutting through others. At the Church of the Annunciation, re-evaluating the long series of excavations undertaken by Franciscan scholars has greatly clarified both the dating and interpretation of the excavated features. While all the known tombs might postdate the first half of the first century, nonetheless archaeological evidence for early first-century occupation in Nazareth does exist. Consequently, they offer no evidence for the character or extent of the early first-century settlement there. The earliest found so far date to the first century but there is no reason to assign any of them to the first half of that century. Nevertheless, when applied critically, this method enables a broad chronology to be established for the Nazareth tombs. For example, tombs sealed with disc-shaped stones (“rolling stones”) are more often found and used for a more extensive social range in Lower Galilee – including the excavated cemetery at Migdal Ha-’Emeq southwest of Nazareth – than in the Jerusalem area. However, some features are more common in Galilee than farther south. When applied to Nazareth this demonstrates the close similarities between the Nazareth tombs and those in these areas. Photograph 1: The valley between Nazareth and Sepphoris (copyright Ken Dark)įortunately, Israeli archaeologists working in the Jerusalem and Jericho areas, and in Galilee itself, have established a well-dated sequence of tomb types. As they were excavated before the use of modern methods, this means that the only way to date the Nazareth tombs is by comparing their constructional details with well-dated examples from elsewhere. Rock-cut tombs are especially hard to date accurately because they were made to be accessed over a long period of time so human bones and manufactured objects could be added and removed from them. However, the majority of the tombs can neither be closely dated, nor can it be taken for granted that plotting their distribution enables the identification of the limits of the occupied area. It is often assumed that the tombs date from the period of the Gospels and indicate the extent of the first-century settlement. Most of what was known about the settlement prior to the turn of this millennium consisted of evidence found during the construction of the present-day Church of the Annunciation (the cathedral-sized church in central Nazareth) and a series of rock-cut tombs discovered predominantly in the nineteenth century. Until recently, professional archaeologists had largely neglected Nazareth in Galilee. See Also: Roman-Period and Byzantine Nazareth and its Hinterland (Routledge, 2020).
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