Turkish Daily News wants you to visit all the old haunts of the Byzantines.

I bring up this recent find, even though it’s earlier than our period of interest, because it was brought up out of the seas just offshore from my ancestral city, Caltanissetta. All of my grandparents set sail (or rather steam) from there.

Excavated villa shows evidence of “the earliest Christian worship in Britain.” And board games, too.

The Vatican has brought out a new book on the Catacombs, with abundant photos and plans. BMCR reviews it here.

Italy declares state of emergency for Pompeii site …

A little late to save Pliny the Elder.

National Geographic gives us more detail on that wine press near St. Catherine’s in Sinai: “Two wine presses found in Egypt were likely part of the area’s earliest winery, producing holy wine for export to Christians abroad, archaeologists say. Egyptian archaeologists discovered the two presses with large crosses carved across them near St. Catherine’s Monastery, a sixth-century A.D. complex near Mount Sinai on the Sinai Peninsula.”

Thanks to David Meadows for bringing our attention to the first broadside against the recent discovery in Jordan. My favorite line from his post: “it’s interesting that the ThaiIndian piece originated at National Geographic … an organization which, of course, NEVER sensationalizes any discoveries and certainly has no archaeologists-in-residence who regularly do such.” Anybody remember the Gospel of Judas?

Critics dub worlds oldest church discovery ridiculous

Washington, June 14 (ANI): The recent discovery of the world’s first Christian church by a Jordanian archaeologist has been dismissed by critics as ridiculous.

A team of archaeologists in Jordan led by Abdel-Qader al-Housan, director of the Rihab Center for Archaeological Studies had announced the discovery of the worlds oldest church dating from 33 AD to 70 AD.

The church was found underneath the ancient Saint Georgeous Church, which itself dates back to 230 AD, in Rihab, northern Jordan near the Syrian border.

Al-Housan also said that the cave showed evidence of early Christian rituals.

However, Ghazi Bisheh, former director general of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities dubbed the claims as “ridiculous,” saying the archaeologist behind them “has a tendency to sensationalize discoveries” and offered no evidence to back his recent assertion.

The team had found a mosaic in church that described these Christians as “the 70 beloved by God and Divine”.

According to Al-Housan it referred to 70 disciples who fled Roman persecution in Jerusalem during the first century A.D., after the death of Jesus Christ.

But Bisheh says the identity of the disciples mentioned in the mosaic is not clear.

The experts widely believe that organized churches didn’t exist until at least the third century A.D.

After the death of Jesus Christ, Christian worship used to be in homes and other domestic buildings or, less commonly, by rivers outside city walls during the first century A.D. The organized churches did not emerge until the Byzantine period, in the fifth century A.D.

“It sounds rather anachronistic,” National Geographic quoted Biblical scholar Stephen Pfann, president of the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem, as saying.

He said that during the first century, the term “church” or “ekklesia” was used for the assembled body of believers and not the building or catacombs where they were assembling.

“If they are talking about a cave, it could have been a hiding place. In timeif there were martyrs there or something significant that took place there or a well-known individual who was among the disciples of Jesusthen you would have had reason to commemorate the site, which could later be used by the church’s monks, he said.

“But the cave that’s there is one that doesn’t necessarily commemorate anything I don’t know how you can take an underground cave and say it could present itself as a first-century church,” he added.

“The experts widely believe that organized churches didn’t exist until at least the third century A.D … The organized churches did not emerge until the Byzantine period, in the fifth century A.D.”

Well, which is it — the third or the fifth? In any event, the statement is a gross over-simplification.

Al Ahram reports on several recent archeological finds, including a Byzantine-era wine factory near St. Catherine’s in Sinai. I can’t help but love the presses that made the wine for the Masses of the saints.

The third discovery was made during routine excavation in the area of Sayl Al-Tuhfah, west of Saint Catherine’s Monastery in South Sinai, where an SCA team discovered the well-preserved remains of a limestone wine factory dating to the Byzantine era (sixth century AD).

Farag Fada, head of the SCA’s Islamic and Coptic Department, says the factory consists of two parts. The first is a square basin with a pump at one end; the bottom of the basin is covered with plaster, and some sections still bear traces of red colour. The northern wall of this basin is decorated with a cross-shaped pattern inside a circle, under which is a clay pump. “This type of pump was used to make the wine flow after treading the raisins and dates,” Hawass said.

Fada says the second part of the factory is a circle- shaped basin that looks like a well with a hole. On two sides were limestone slabs which may have been used by the factory workers to stand on.

Tarek El-Naggar, head of South Sinai Antiquities, said the area connecting the clay pump to the second basin had a hole in order to place the jars used to hold the wine. Early studies have shown that the area of Sayl Al-Tuhfah was an industrial region for the production of wine, as there were many vines and date palms.

Many more photos of the Jordan church.

The Telegraph has posted a couple of photos of the Jordan church.