This one in Ireland:

Three ringforts were also found at Camblin. One of them included a small cemetery dating to the 6th to 7th Century. Archaeologists say the cemetery would have been in use before the Bishops of Roscrea had formalised human burial into consecrated churchyards.

‘Burials were all in the Christian manner, although some of the bodies seem to have been more casually interred, such as one where the legs were bent to fit into a small grave The burials included people of all ages and it is likely the site was used for several hundred years,’ according to the archaeological report on the motorway route commissioned by the National Roads Authority.

The report said the concentration of ancient sites discovered near the present N62 Templemore Road at Camblin reflected the location of the ancient Roscrea to Cashel routeway.

N.S. Gill has put up a handy guide.

Some enterprising soul could probably make a software “inscription translator” that would give all possible translations for any specimen. That would really be amusing.

Third century, Christian, Aramaic inscriptions … I suspect this is gonna be significant.

DAMASCUS, Syria – Archaeologists in northeast Syria have unearthed a 3rd century cemetery in the shape of a cross, the country’s official news agency reported Wednesday.

Ten skeletons, along with pottery and coins, were found at the site in Hassaka, 441 miles northeast of the capital Damascus, SANA reported.

Some of the artifacts contained inscriptions in the ancient Aramaic language, it said.

Wednesday’s find came a day after SANA reported that archaeologists had found a Roman-era cemetery in Latakia, northwest of Damascus. That cemetery was believed to date back about 1,000 years, SANA said.

Also according to the report, Wednesday’s find is not the same as that of another cemetery, of the same era and on the same location, announced last November.

That Roman-era cemetery in this history-rich country were archaeological discoveries are common, was also in the shape of a cross. It was not immediately clear how far from each other the two cemeteries are.

From MSNBC:

Last month, Syrian media reported the discovery of a Roman-era cross-shaped limestone cemetery in the Nasiriya area in the remote Hasaka province, some 440 miles northeast of Damascus, dating from the third century. The graveyard also contained coins, pottery shards and bracelets dating to the later Aramaic era.

Dr. Jim West posted an obituary for Dr. John Strugnell, former editor-in-chief of the Dead Sea Scrolls and emeritus professor of Christian origins at Harvard. Strugnell was a member of the original team charged with reassembling and translating the fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls. He was a convert to the Roman Catholic faith. May he rest in the peace of Christ.

A few days back I reported the discovery of a patristic-era synagogue in Israel. According to Haaretz, the workmanship is causing historians and archeologists to “rethink Byzantine-era Judaism.” (Some day soon we’ll also get around to rethinking the alleged “anti-Semitism” of the Fathers.)

Rethinking Byzantine-era Judaism

By Ran Shapira

A row of artisans and laborers – one with a saw in his hand, another with a chisel, and others with various sized hammers – are depicted on the mosaic floor recently uncovered in a Roman- or Byzantine-era synagogue at Khirbet Wadi Hamam, on Mount Nitai in the Lower Galilee. The workers appear next to a very large building, which they seem to be constructing.

Because the image appears on the synagogue floor, the researchers have assumed it depicts the construction of an important Biblical structure. Is it the Temple, Noah’s Ark, the Tower of Babel, or some other well-known work?

Dr. Uzi Leibner of the Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology and Scholion Interdisciplinary Research Center in Jewish Studies, who is leading the excavation, has no clear answer at this stage. What is clear is that the mosaic, constructed from very small stones – whose sides measure about four millimeters each – is unique. No such scenes have been found in other ancient synagogues or structures in Israel from that period. But which period exactly are we referring to – the Roman or the Byzantine? The dig at the synagogue is being carried out to answer that question.

To judge by the findings, the synagogue, which sits within the Arbel National Park, is a “Galilean synagogue” – a high-quality Romanesque structure with an elaborate facade facing toward Jerusalem and attractive stone carvings. Synagogues of this type were thought to date from the late Roman period, between the second and fourth centuries. However, in the last few years, researchers have discovered that synagogues of this type were built in the Byzantine era, too – between the fifth and sixth centuries.

The debate was sparked by the synagogue at Capernaum, a fine example of a Galilean synagogue that clearly was built in the fifth century. The findings from that synagogue and others led some researchers to consider the hypothesis that the Galilean synagogues were built mainly in the fifth and sixth centuries.

Contradictory evidence

On the face of it, this theory contradicts everything known about Judaism in the beginning of the first millennium C.E., and its relations with the ruling empires at the time. The common wisdom is that Jewish settlement flourished in the Galilee in the late Roman era – Rabbi Yehuda Hanassi compiled the Mishna at Zippori, and remarkable public buildings were constructed in many Jewish communities. However, from the mid-fourth century, when the Christian Byzantine empire rose to power, Jewish life was hampered, and some of the laws at that time even forbade the establishment of synagogues.

However, the archaeological findings from Capernaum and other synagogues indicate that things were more complex than historical records may indicate. More evidence now supports the theory that most of the Galilean synagogues actually were built during the Byzantine period, and that their Romanesque components were initially parts of earlier structures.

The synagogue at Khirbet Wadi Hamam was large and elaborate. It had a long hall running from north to south, of which about one quarter was exposed in the last excavation season, with a southern facade facing Jerusalem. The hall contained three rows of columns, and had two rows of benches along the northern, western and eastern walls.

The uniqueness of the building lies not only in its mosaic floor, but also in its combination of basalt and limestone. The walls were built from layers of basalt topped by layers of limestone; the stone benches incorporated limestone as well. The researchers believe the limestone was integrated into the structure during a massive repair. As in other Galilean synagogues, this one also contains late Roman-era architectural details – most of them also from limestone. However, the researchers believe that the signs of renovation could indicate the structure was actually built at a later stage, and that these items actually were part of an earlier structure.

The synagogue lies inside a large village, of more than 50 dunams, one of the larger, late Roman-era and Byzantine-era Jewish villages discovered in the rural Galilee. It is located strategically above the source of the Arbel river and the ancient road that wound from the Kinneret basin to the Lower Galilee and from there, via the Beit Netofa valley, to the Mediterranean sea.

Not far away were two large, well-known communities – Kfar Arbel and Migdal – as well as the big Jewish centers of the period, Tiberias and Zippori. Despite all these facts, the original name of the community was not preserved there, and it is still unknown. Findings indicate the village was abandoned permanently in the fourth century. Researchers are hoping to learn at what stage the synagogue, with its unique mosaic floor, was built.

Judging by other buildings unearthed close to the synagogue – an oil press and a two-story dwelling – the residents of the village were fairly well-off. The homes in the community were built on terraces along the slopes of the hill, separated by lanes. Since the village apparently was abandoned in the fourth century – which contradicts the claim that the synagogue dates to the Byzantine era – that period’s architecture can be examined without interference from later structures. Leibner believes the synagogue could be a test case that would help researchers improve their dating methods for Galilean synagogues. In the upcoming excavation seasons, he says he intends to find more clues that would provide a precise date, and thus possibly solve the riddle.

In Israel, archeologists found the remains of a Byzantine synagogue, with lovely mosaics intact. News reports say that this find could change our reading of the status of Jews in that corner of the Christian empire, during that century.

Archaeologists differ among themselves as to which period the ancient Galilean synagogues belong. The generally accepted view is that they can be attributed to the later Roman period (second to fourth centuries C.E.), a time of cultural and political flowering of the Jews of the Galilee. Recently, some researchers have come to believe that these synagogues were built mainly during the Byzantine period (fifth and sixth centuries C.E.), a time in which Christianity rose to power and, it was thought, the Jews suffered from persecution. Dr. Leibner noted that this difference of scholarly opinion has great significance in perhaps redrawing the historical picture of Jews in those ancient times.

Meanwhile in Rome the diggers are still pondering the cave they found at the beginning of the year, that may or may not be the Lupercale, the cave where Rome’s mythological founders, Romulus and Remus, were nursed by the she-wolf who adopted them. For the early Christians, Rome’s old founders evoked the new city’s new founders. Pope Benedict drew on his predecessor, Leo the Great, as he announced the upcoming Year of St. Paul:

Like Romulus and Remus, the two mythical brothers who are said to have given birth to the City, so Peter and Paul were held to be the founders of the Church of Rome.

Speaking to the City on this topic, St Leo the Great said: “These are your holy Fathers and true shepherds, who gave you claims to be numbered among the heavenly kingdoms, and built you under much better and happier auspices than they, by whose zeal the first foundations of your walls were laid” (Sermon 82, 7).

However humanly different they may have been from each other and despite the tensions that existed in their relationship, Peter and Paul appear as the founders of a new City, the expression of a new and authentic way of being brothers which was made possible by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

For this reason, it can be said that the Church of Rome is celebrating her birthday today, since it was these two Apostles who laid her foundations.

As far as we know, Peter and Paul did their suckling in the normal way.

Once again, a study of early Christianity has won the award for best doctoral dissertation of the pontifical academies. This one’s on the Catacombs of Pamphilus on Rome’s old Salarian Way. Pope Benedict XVI presented the award.

I couldn’t make this up.

Archeologists in Israel have found a Roman road from the first century. See details below. Maybe Monty Python was right?

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli archaeologists have unearthed the remains of a second century terraced street and bath house which provide vital clues about the layout of Roman Jerusalem.

The Israel Antiquities Authority said the 30-metre (90-foot) alley was used by the Romans to link the central Cardo thoroughfare with a bath house and with a bridge to the Temple Mount, once the site of Jerusalem’s ancient Jewish temple….

Seligman said the newly-discovered alley once led to an important bridge over a ravine known during the time of Jesus as the Valley of the Cheesemakers.

Scientists have succeeded in running DNA tests to determine what once filled the amphoras found in ancient shipwrecks and tombs.

Watch out for barbarians! Rome’s Aurelian Wall is finally coming down.