The Byzantine Eastern Church of Khirbet et-Tireh
| dc.contributor.author | Al-Houdalieh, Salah Hussein A. | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2018-09-15T11:36:34Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2018-09-15T11:36:34Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2016-01-29 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Khirbet et-Tireh was inhabited during the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Early Islamic periods, and was later used as agricultural land throughout the Ottoman-Turkish period and down to modern times. The ancient settlement has been determined to cover a total area of approximately 30,000 square meters. However, 75 percent of its historic fortified space has been destroyed over the past few decades by the construction of roads, a school, a gas station and several residential structures on its northern part. The surviving architectural remains at the Khirbet include a system of fortifications, a Byzantine monastery, two Byzantine-era churches, a rock-cut reservoir, a cistern, water channels, a rock-cut olive press, several burial caves, a street (or a wide pathway corridor), and several dry-stone terrace walls. The unearthed part of the eastern church complex measures 28.8 m long along its east-west axis and a maximum of 25.5 m wide in its north-south dimension. It follows a basilical plan and consists of five main parts: four south side rooms, an atrium, a narthex, a main hall, and three northeast side rooms. The entire area of the church was once paved with mosaic carpets consisting of geometric and figurative designs, with the richly colored tesserae encompassing various shades of white, black, grey, yellow, orange, pink, wine red, green and blue. Furthermore, remains of two plaster layers were uncovered on the interior faces of the majority of the walls of the church complex. After the final consolidation and conservation of the mosaic pavements of the church, as a protective measure we are covering the mosaics with a permeable, plastic-mesh geotextile, topped by a layer of sieved soil 0.25 m thick. | en_US |
| dc.description.sponsorship | We are grateful to Al-Quds University and the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate for their generous financial assistance, which allowed for the further excavation and conservation of Khirbet et-Tireh over the summer of 2015, and to the Palestinian American Research Centre (PARC) for its financial assistance, which has made possible the publication of this research. I am indebted also to my B.A. archaeology students for their tireless efforts over the course of the excavation season. Thanks are also extended to Osama Hamdan, Raed Khalil, Rafat Khateeb, and Wisal Musa for their skilled, professional conservation of the unearthed mosaic pavements of the church. Finally, I would like to thank Tom Powers for his constructive proofreading and comments on the draft of this work. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.citation | Al-Houdalieh, S. H. A. (2016). The Byzantine Eastern Church of Khirbet et-Tireh. Archaeological Discovery, 4, 48-67.http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ad.2016.41005 | en_US |
| dc.identifier.issn | 2331-1967 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://dspace.alquds.edu/handle/20.500.12213/896 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | en_US |
| dc.publisher | Scientific Research Publishing | en_US |
| dc.subject | Khirbet et-Tireh | en_US |
| dc.subject | Church | en_US |
| dc.subject | Crypt | en_US |
| dc.subject | Mosaics | en_US |
| dc.subject | Byzantine Period | en_US |
| dc.title | The Byzantine Eastern Church of Khirbet et-Tireh | en_US |
| dc.type | Article | en_US |