News from the ancient world
Early Christianity is the period from the first followers of Jesus in the 1st century AD to the councils and church-building of late antiquity. The faith spread from Judaea across the Roman Empire, at first as a minority that was sometimes persecuted. Under Constantine, in the early 4th century, it gained imperial support, and by the end of that century it was the official religion of the empire. Bishops, monasteries and pilgrimage shaped Christian life from Egypt and Syria to Italy, and Greek, Latin, Syriac and Coptic were its main written languages.
Recent finds in our stories add detail to that picture. At Ostia near Rome, excavators found a marble-clad reception hall at least eight metres high beside a church built around AD 330, probably the seat of the town's bishops. In Egypt's Dakhla Oasis, a 4th-century AD town at Ain el-Sabil had a central church and an earlier house that may have served as one. Imaging at Mount Athos has recovered 42 pages of Codex H, a 6th-century copy of St Paul's letters with the earliest known chapter lists for them.
Byzantium · 4th century AD · Ain el-Sabil, Dakhla Oasis, New Valley Governorate, Egypt
The 4th-century AD mudbrick settlement at Ain el-Sabil had a street grid, a central church, a fortress and an earlier house that may have served as a church.
Byzantium · 6th century AD · Great Lavra Monastery, Mount Athos, Mount Athos, Greece
Codex H, a copy of St Paul's letters cut up for bindings at the Great Lavra Monastery, holds the earliest known chapter lists for Paul's letters.
Byzantium · Late 6th to mid-8th century AD · Hippos, Northern District, Israel
The southern hall at Hippos, above the Sea of Galilee, was sealed by the earthquake of AD 749 with a three-cavity marble block, a reliquary and a bronze candelabrum inside.
Byzantium · 5th century AD · Al-Qalaya, Hosh Issa, Beheira, Egypt
The 13-room building at Al-Qalaya in Beheira has a prayer room, a hall for visitors, wall paintings of monks and a Coptic epitaph.
Greece & Rome · c. AD 330 · Ostia Antica, Lazio, Italy
Excavators found a marble-clad reception hall at least eight metres high beside a church built around AD 330, probably the seat of Ostia's bishops.
Byzantium · c. AD 712/713 · St Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai, South Sinai, Egypt
Written around AD 712/713 in Syriac and later translated into Arabic, the 'Maronite Chronicle of 713' survives in one damaged 13th-century copy at St Catherine's Monastery.
Byzantium · 5th–6th century AD · Al-Qarya bi-al-Duweir, Tama, Sohag Governorate, Egypt
Excavators in Upper Egypt found a fifth- or sixth-century AD monastic complex with a church, vaulted rooms thought to be monks' cells and Coptic inscriptions.