Abstract
Khirbet et-Tireh was inhabited during the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Early Islamic periods, and was later used as agricultural land throughout the Ottoman-Turkish period and down to modern times. The ancient settlement has been determined to cover a total area of approximately 30,000 square meters. However, 75 percent of its historic fortified space has been destroyed over the past few decades by the construction of roads, a school, a gas station and several residential structures on its northern part. The surviving architectural remains at the Khirbet include a system of fortifications, a Byzantine monastery, two Byzantine-era churches, a rock-cut reservoir, a cistern, water channels, a rock-cut olive press, several burial caves, a street (or a wide pathway corridor), and several dry-stone terrace walls. The unearthed part of the eastern church complex measures 28.8 m long along its east-west axis and a maximum of 25.5 m wide in its north-south dimension. It follows a basilical plan and consists of five main parts: four south side rooms, an atrium, a narthex, a main hall, and three northeast side rooms. The entire area of the church was once paved with mosaic carpets consisting of geometric and figurative designs, with the richly colored tesserae encompassing various shades of white, black, grey, yellow, orange, pink, wine red, green and blue. Furthermore, remains of two plaster layers were uncovered on the interior faces of the majority of the walls of the church complex. After the final consolidation and conservation of the mosaic pavements of the church, as a protective measure we are covering the mosaics with a permeable, plastic-mesh geotextile, topped by a layer of sieved soil 0.25 m thick.
Highlights
Khirbet et-Tireh is situated some 1.5 km west of the historic centre of the WestHow to cite this paper: Al-Houdalieh, S
The unearthed area of the church complex consists of the following architectural components: four auxiliary rooms along the south side; an atrium; a narthex; a main hall divided by two rows of columns into a central apsed nave and two aisles; and three more side rooms to the north of the main hall
The results of that sounding suggest the following: (1) the northern and western walls of this room were built on a broad foundation laid immediately on top of the bedrock; (2) The vertical distance between the bedrock surface and the stone substrate of the mosaic bedding layer was backfilled with a layer (1.7 m thick) of yellowish-brown earth mixed with a large number of small- and medium-sized stones, along with a small quantity of pottery sherds dated to the Roman and Early Byzantine periods; and (3) traces of a single plaster layer were identified only on the interior face of the western wall of this room, beginning at the interface of the filling layer and the stone substrate and extending upward
Summary
Khirbet et-Tireh (or et-Tira, el-Tira, al-Tira) is situated some 1.5 km west of the historic centre of the West. By the end of the third campaign, our teams, ranging from 22 to 29 individuals, had excavated a total area of approximately 1600 square meters (Figure 2). Most of the space of the western church was unearthed in the 2013 excavation campaign, a new section of its southeastern extent was unearthed during this third campaign (2015), with a small section as yet hidden beneath a large heap of stones. This church follows a basilical plan and consists of two main parts, northern and southern. Just to the south it is bounded by a poorly preserved, but massive, dry-stone terrace wall; this modern wall measures from 2 to 5 m in thickness and stands more than 2.5 m high
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