Excavations at the Kursi site on the shores of the Sea of Galilee have uncovered an inscription in Hebrew letters engraved on a large marble slab, dating back ca. 1,600 years.

No similar artifact has even been found before in Israel, and the finding confirms for the first time that the ancient settlement at the site was Jewish or Judeo-Christian. The excavation is led by Dr. Haim Cohen and Prof. Michal Artzy of the Hatter Laboratory in the Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies at the University of Haifa, in cooperation with the Antiquities Authority and the Nature and Parks Authority’s Kursi Beach site.

The existence of an ancient settlement at the site, on the northeast shore of the Sea of Galilee, has been known since the 1960s, when Mendel Nun of Kibbutz Ein Gev, together with Prof. Avner Raban of the University of Haifa, found remnants of a large breakwater under the sea during their survey. They also noticed some stones, possibly belonging to a public building. Not far away, remnants were later found of a city whose main features resembled those of a Christian site from the Byzantine period (5th century CE)…

Auteur : University of Haifa
Tiré du site web : The Archeology News Network Blogspot
Date : 18-12-2015
Photo : Jennifer Munro

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