The Account of Caesarea by the Piacenza Pilgrim and the Recent Archaeological Discovery of the Octagonal Church in Caesarea Maritima

Abstract

This article presents a case in which information derived from a written historical source, which is considered distorted, may be clarified by archaeological discoveries, and archaeological enigmas may be explained by the historical text. Hitherto, the description of Caesarea Maritima by the Piacenza Pilgrim (c. 570 AD) has been considered as a distorted report, combining and confusing two cities in the Holy Land named Caesarea: Caesarea Philippi (known today as Banias) and Caesarea Maritima. In the 1990s K. G. Holum excavated in Caesarea Maritima an octagon church which he identified as a martyrium. He proposed several suggestions for the identification of the saint to whom it was dedicated. A synthesis between the archaeological findings and the Piacenza Pilgrim's written description of Caesarea clarifies the text (erroneously evaluated as distorted), allowing us to propose a new identification of the saint to whom the martyrium at Caesarea Maritima was dedicated.