The 1930s excavations at the YMCA site in Jerusalem and the Byzantine ‘Monastery of the Iberians’

Abstract

This article presents a reevaluation of the finds discovered in 1930s, during salvage excavations by J. Iliffe on behalf of the British Mandatory Department of Antiquities, conducted west of the YMCA site in Jerusalem. One of the most important discoveries made on the site was the Greek epitaph of Bishop Samuel – the first inscription found in Palestine mentioning Iberians (Georgians), which launched the archaeological study of the Georgian antiquities of the Holy Land. The documentation of YMCA excavations, preserved in the Mandatory Archive of the Israel Antiquities Authority contains the large quantity of unpublished materials, including field photos and plans, allowed for the complete layout of the large Byzantine complex to be distinguished, interpreted by its excavator as a monastery. The relationship of the YMCA site to the Georgian monastic community is discussed in connection with other evidence related to the "Monastery of the Iberians" – a monastic institution of Byzantine Jerusalem, known both from the historical sources and independent epigraphic evidence.