A massive Byzantine-era monastery complex with a unique mosaic was recently unearthed next to the southern city of Kiryat Gat, the Israel Antiquities Authority said in a Monday statement.
The previously unknown monastery site contains a unique mosaic floor with a biblical inscription from the Book of Deuteronomy and a wine-making operation.
IAA archaeologists called the monastery “the largest and most significant site discovered in the region” from the period. The mosaic was heralded as “one of the most unique ever found in Israel,” according to Mark Avrahami, who leads artistic conservation efforts at the IAA.
The complex was discovered during work related to the development of a new neighborhood north of the city. The majority of the compound was dated to the Byzantine era (5th-6th centuries CE), although an earlier layer dates from the late Roman period, about 600 years previously, the researchers said.
The main mosaic floor was decorated with images of “crosses, lions, doves, an amphora (a ceramic maritime shipping jug), [and] flowers and geometric patterns” created from very small stones, the notice said. In the center lay a biblical inscription in Greek: “Blessed are you when you come in, and blessed are you when you go out” (Deuteronomy 28:6).
The mosaic is to be transferred to the IAA’s mosaic workshop for preservation, before being returned to Kiryat Gat as part of a future public display, they added.
Near the main monastery building, archaeologists uncovered “a very sophisticated wine press,” which they determined had been repaired several times, indicating “that building and developing this winery involved significant financial resources, time, and a range of professional work and effort.”
The fermentation rooms contained mosaic flooring with “integrated blue and white stones. In the plastered surfaces of the collecting vats you can see remnants of red paint. The northern collecting vat floor is built of slabs, upon some of which can still be seen Greek letters, which served as masonry marks for the winepress builders,” the researchers said.
In and around the site researchers found “a great quantity of imported ware, coins, marble elements [and] metal and glass vessels,” indicating the richness and importance of the settlement.
The site, which included the monastery itself and the community around it, sits “on a central road junction connecting the mountain region to the coastal plain. It apparently served the area’s smaller settlements as well as travelers passing by,” noted Shira Lifshitz and Maayan Margulis, IAA excavation directors.
The area was first developed during the late Roman period, around the 1st century CE, and then “in the Byzantine period, one can see the settlement’s significant expansion, which included the construction of the monastery and the winepress,” the researchers said.
IAA archaeologist Shira Lifshitz holding a small ceramic bottle discovered during the Byzantine-era monastary exacation near Kiryat Gat, in an image released January 6, 2024. (Emil Aladjem/Israel Antiquities Authority)
The site also contained evidence of a local pottery industry, including “detritus typical of a ceramic factory, garbage pits, misshapen vessels that were flawed in production, and even a number of vessels unique to this site,” the notice said.
Kiryat Gat, a city east of Ashkelon with a population of some 65,000, is also the site of Tel Erani, a significant Bronze and Iron ages settlement thought to have been a Philistine city. “Gat” means “winepress” in Hebrew.
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