Crossing the Holy Land: New church discoveries from the biblical world

Fifteen miles SW of Jerusalem at Horvat Midras there was discovered in 2011 a large Early Byzantine church of 5th- to 7th-century date containing superb tessellated pavements that was located within the area of an earlier Jewish settlement. Behind the church’s bema and its semicircular apse occurred two rooms and a vacant tomb. By comparison with a site on the Madaba map named Bethzacharia and a structure there called the sanctuary of Zechariah, which corresponds to the location of Horvat Midras, it is speculated that the tomb in the church might have commemorated the prophet Zechariah of the 6th century BCE. The mosaics in the church are brightly colored (one prominent hue is orange-red) and display both geometric and figural designs. Among the latter are a panel of birds moving among blossoms and fish swimming among lotus flowers on which birds are resting. The mosaics were left exposed to view and later vandalized, leading to the current campaign to restore the pavements.