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‘Atiqot 79 (2014)
ISBN 2948-040X
New Archaeological Finds from Kursi-Gergesa
(with a contribution by Gabriela Bijovsky)
(pp. 175–197)
Vassilios Tzaferis
Keywords: Sea of Galilee, Christianity, religion, monastery, church, pilgrims, cemetery, burial, anthropology, numismatics, metal, polilychnos, art, Christ, Christian iconography, expulsion of the Persians
Two areas were opened (Areas C, D), exposing a stepped tunnel, a bathhouse and a cemetery. The stepped tunnel, which was unearthed in the 1970–1971 season of excavations, was found to end in a narrow leveled space, above which was a vaulted entrance leading to a spacious underground room. A compact Roman–Byzantine bathhouse was exposed, comprising five distinct units: a water-supply unit, a heating installation (
praefurnium
), heated-water pools, a hot room (
caldarium
) and a cool room (
frigidarium
). It is evident that the bathhouse was connected to the hostel building excavated in 1970–1971. The pottery from the bathhouse was similar to that of the adjacent hostel building, including fragments of bowls, cooking pots and oil lamps. Based on the stratigraphic and ceramic evidence, the bathhouse operated in the second quarter of the seventh century CE. The discovery of the bathhouse sheds light on the secular functions of the monastery at Kursi-Gergesa. Behind the apse wall of the church at Kursi were uncovered three tombs and a cist tomb. The tombs contained the disarticulated bones of several dozen humans (studied by Yossi Nagar). Mixed with the skeletal remains were ceramic-bowl and lamp fragments; glass vessels and beads (studied by Natalia Katsnelson); engraved iron rings and bronze jewelry; buckles, bells and chain fragments; iron weapons and tools; incised bone plaques; and four coins, three of them perforated (studied by Gabriela Bijovsky). The burials seem to represent a communal tomb (of pilgrims?), buried at the site in the late Byzantine period (late sixth–early seventh centuries CE), possibly following a tragic historical event (epidemic? massacre?).