ABSTRACT

The Sisters of Nazareth site shows the enduring significance of belief and perception in structuring settlement history, and provides an insight into Roman, Byzantine and Crusader Nazareth in many ways exemplifying the history of the settlement at Nazareth from the first century onwards. It has evidence for a well-preserved first-century domestic structure for the cave-church probably mentioned in Egeria’s description of fourth-century Nazareth, for what is both perhaps the most important of the hitherto lost Byzantine pilgrimage churches of the Holy Land and perhaps Byzantine Nazareth’s biggest building, and for a major Crusader pilgrimage church. It also highlights the overlooked importance of cave-churches in the origins of Christian religious architecture, sheds light on both Byzantine and Crusader liturgical practices in Nazareth, and indicates the political priorities of the Crusader rulers of Galilee. The preservation of a first-century domestic building in a fourth- to seventh-century ecclesiastical context is very unusual in the Late Roman or Byzantine Holy Land.