You and I have been to Ostia before — at least vicariously, through our reading of St. Augustine, especially the lovely account of his farewell dialogue with his mother, Monica. Today I discovered a very cool website dedicated to the archeology of Old Ostia. Take the trip!
Category: Archeology
Mom’s House
Turkish Daily News takes us to the “House of Mary” in Ephesus.
About Buildings
About.com gives us An Archaeological Survey of Religious Structures, including great shots of St. Catherine’s in Egypt and the house church of Dura Europos, Syria.
What’s Up in Ephesus
The Turkish press gives us a little update on the excavations at Ephesus — the city of St. John and the Blessed Virgin — the city that received visits and mail from St. Paul and St. Ignatius — the place where St. Justin Martyr had his famous dialogue with Trypho.
Was His Barque Worse Than His Bait?
Archeologists at The Discover Channel are digging up new information on how ancient fishermen — like St. Peter — lured their catches. “Fire fishing” comes up in Plato and other ancient authors. Fascinating.
Fishermen around areas mentioned in the New Testament worked the night shift, suggests fishing gear found in a 7th century shipwreck off the coast of Dor, Israel, west of Galilee, where Jesus is said to have preached.
The standout item among the found gear is a fire basket, the first evidence for “fire fishing” in the ancient eastern Mediterranean. Early images and writings indicate fires were lit in such baskets, which were suspended in giant lantern devices from the end of fishing boats.
Light emitted from the fire both attracted and illuminated fish, as well as other sea creatures, like octopus, which men then speared or captured in nets.
Wait till the textual critics find out. We’ll find footnotes proposing all manner of alternative readings: “I have come to cast fire upon the sea…”
Spirit of Ancient Egypt
I stumbled upon this Egyptology site that has great pages on the Copts, some in English, some in Italian. One English page is especially nice, on Coptic textiles. (We posted on the subject here.) If you like what you see, you’ll probably be interested in this book. And it’s impossible for me to mention the Copts without recommending books by my friend Father Mark Gruber, OSB: : Journey Back to Eden: My Life and Times Among the Desert Fathers and Sacrifice in the Desert: A Study of an Egyptian Minority Through the Prism of Coptic Monasticism. . (My review of Journey Back to Eden is right here.)
There Is Nothing Like a Game
Archaeology magazine has posted a fine introduction to “the games” — gladiatorial combat, public executions and such — the bloody public entertainment of ancient Rome. Christians were often placed in the center ring as victims in these violent spectacles. But, even in the years of relative peace, the Fathers condemned the blood sports of the arena.
Bee There Then
Archeologists have dug up evidence of half the resources that filled the Promised Land with milk and honey: beekeeping. That phrase, “milk and honey,” had an interesting effect on early Catholic liturgy. At Easter Vigil, new Christians, as a sign of their entry into the Kingdom, received a chalice of milk and honey along with the sacraments — a custom that has wide attestation (Hippolytus, Tertullian, Jerome, maybe pseudo-Barnabas, and many others). It seems to have lasted in some places till the late seventh century.
I hasten to add that I’m not advocating a retrieval of the practice! Pope Pius XII warned against an “exaggerated and senseless antiquarianism,” and I say amen to that. I’m all for ressourcement; but part of that process should be an appreciation of the wisdom of our Fathers in retiring some very ancient practices — like, perhaps, chalices of milk and honey — and the office of deaconess?
(The custom comes up for discussion in my book The Mass of the Early Christians.)
More from Tiberias
More on the Byzantine Church unearthed in Tiberias. Experts are saying it’s from 427 A.D. at the latest. That link gets you a nice photo, too.
New Digs
Israel’s Antiquities Authority announced another find, this one a beautiful Byzantine church with lovely mosaics and dedicatory inscriptions, among them: “Our Lord (Jesus), protect the soul of your servant…”
Archeologizing the Areopagite
I’ll bet you can’t say that headline five times fast.
Israeli archeologists have discovered a sixth-century Byzantine villa with mosaic floors, 15 kilometers south of Jaffa. The area was, at the end of the fifth century, “home to a monk known as Peter the Iberian — a charismatic bishop of Georgian origin who gathered around him a circle of intellectuals. His biography, ‘The Life of Peter the Iberian,’ provides a glimpse into the nature of the community.” Some scholars tag Peter the Iberian (an anti-chalcedonian rebel) to be the real genius behind the works of “Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.”
Well, Well, Well
Breaking news from This Is Cornwall:
The discovery of an ancient well on a Cornish estate has led to speculation that it is the legendary well of St Petroc.
The discovery was made by amateur archaeologist Jonathan Clemes while searching for a secret tunnel in the grounds of Prideaux Place, an Elizabethan manor house at Padstow.
Mr Clemes regularly works with TV’s Time Team and carries out a lot of excavations on the Prideaux estate.
He said: “I knew I was on to something when I found a papal bulla in the field close by. It’s a type of lead seal which was always a good indicator of a holy well being in the area. So we started excavating and found this ancient well and we feel there is a good chance that this could be St Petroc’s well.”
St Petroc arrived in Padstow in the 6th Century, having travelled by coracle from Wales. According to legend, he found reapers at work on a chapel for St Samson. The reapers answered St Petroc’s greeting rudely, saying he could best serve their needs by providing water, whereupon he struck a rock and “so gushed forth a fountain”.
Padstow vicar Chris Malkinson said: “It’s very exciting if it does turn out to be a holy well and I’ll be thrilled to bits if they call it St Petroc’s well. The name has a strong association with both the Anglican and the Catholic communities here.”
Local historian Barry Kinsmen said: “Holy wells are not that unusual here – the difficulty will be proving that this is indeed St Petroc’s well.”
Stairing Contest
We hit this spot on the Rome pilgrimage — the “Holy Stairs” that, according to tradition, Jesus climbed when he was brought before Pontius Pilate. They are among the relics that St. Helena, the mother of Constantine, allegedly brought back from the Holy Land. We gave pilgrims the option of ascending on their knees. We distributed special prayers for each step. Here’s another report.
London Calling
The BBC reports on the St. Martin-era body unearthed at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square.
And if there was a religious, sacred site, could it have been Christian? When the Last Roman died, Christianity had been officially favoured in the Roman Empire for decades – yet there are few Christian remains from Roman Britain and no identifiable churches in Roman London.
For the vicar of St Martin’s, Nicholas Holtam, the discovery of the burial of the Last Roman is a moving experience.
The man was a contemporary of St Martin himself, Nicholas Holtam points out. And he believes there are signs that it may well have been a Christian burial.
It raises the possibility that St Martin’s (first recorded in the 13th Century) has been a sacred site for much longer than we previously thought, he says.
He recognises that the evidence must be looked at scientifically, but adds: “I’d love it to be proved that this was a Christian site dating back to 410.”
Contraceptives of Late Antiquity
Some months back I posted about ancient forms of contraception, a subject covered well in Rodney Stark’s book The Rise of Christianity. Now Kevin Knight has pointed me to another online look at the subject. The Fathers consistently condemned the practice, and some of the people who comment on that article show us why.