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‘Atiqot 83 (2015)
ISBN 2948-040X
A Georgian Monastery from the Byzantine Period at Khirbat Umm Leisun, Jerusalem
(with a contribution by Jon Seligman and Iulon Gagoshidze)
(pp. 145–179)
Jon Seligman
Keywords: Jerusalem, coenobium, monastic complex, monks, Bishop Iohane, mosaics, burial, anthropology, population, Christianity, Georgian language, inscription, epigraphy, paleography, stamped tiles
The site is located 4.5 km southeast of the Old City of Jerusalem. It included the remains of a small monastery from the Byzantine period, consisting of a chapel with mosaic floors and a series of rooms surrounding an open courtyard. On the northern edge of the courtyard, two burial vaults cut into the bedrock on either side of a central staircase. The magnificent northern crypt was built of ashlar masonry. In a niche at the western end of the crypt, a single raised tomb was set; on the top surface of its tombstone was a five-line inscription in Georgian script. The occupant of this most important tomb is the only one identified by an inscription, pointing to his special status. The floor of the crypt was paved with large flagstones, which covered seven burial troughs; each one of them had an iron ring that was used to lift the flagstones. The southern crypt included two burial troughs. The finds were of limited types and chronology. A number of marble pieces of chancel-screen pillars and many fragments of painted wall-plaster were found, as well as glass vessels and windowpanes, ceramics and ceramic roof tiles. Umm Leisun is identified as a small rural monastery on the route from Jerusalem to the laurae and coenobia of the Judean Desert, and from Jerusalem to Bethlehem.