The remains of a Byzantine church dating from the fifth or sixth centuries C.E. have been discovered at the Be’er-Sham ruins in the Negev, the government has announced.
The find was made in the first season of diggings at the site, by a team headed by Yeshayahu Lender and Dan Gazit of the Antiquities Authority, a government agency.
A building was found with two chambers. One used for baptisms contains a marble-coverd baptismal font.
But the most important discovery was the three inscriptions on the mosaic floor.
Two honor the priests and members of the local community.
The third, in Homeric-style Greek, mentions Heladius, the governor of Gerar, which was a province during the Byzantine period in what is now southern Israel.
The inscription says a battalion of the governor’s horsemen helped build the structure.
The inscriptions are especially important to archaeologists, because they name the province and the governor, and credit cavalrymen with erecting the church.
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