Darat al Funun renovation

Lieutenant Colonel F. G. Peake (Peake Pasha) lived in the house adjoining the church from 1920 until 1939 while he created and commanded the Arab Legion. During PeakÕs residence, the Byzantine church was used as a garden. A 1935 photograph of that garden shows column drums that do not appear in earlier surveys. It is possible that they were still buried until the garden was created and that a rough restoration was done at that time; this is indicated by the fact that one of the column drums was placed up-side-down on a base.

B. Bagatti visited the site in 1948, accompanied by G. Lankester Harding, who was then Director of Antiquities. He reported that the structure was still intact and published pictures taken that year, one of which shows some of the columns still in place, and the area as a garden with a Corinthian capital in the middle.

The elements at the site that are first mentioned by Bagatti are Roman horned altar, a piece of a cross inscribed in a circle, and a rosette near the entrance. Bagatti said that the altar confirmed the presence of a pagan cult at the site preceding its Christian use. Based on the paleography of the Christian inscription, which has small letters within the larger ones, and a small circle in the cross-stroke of the letter N, Bagatti concluded that the inscription with the name of St. George should be dated to the end of the 6th or the beginning of the 7th century. On a second visit in 1973 Bagatti (saw a poorly preserved bas-relief with a victory.

S. Saller and B. Bagatti mention the church in their general survey of Christian monuments in Jordan. A. Augustinovic included it his list of churches in the area dedicated to St. Geogre or to St. Elijah; solely on the basis of the mention of Saint George in the inscription, he also included the structure among shrines in Jordan dedicated to the Islamic figure, al-Khadr. Two photographs of the site were published by A. Ramadan; one of them is from 1984 and the other is the same as the one published by Jarvis. R. Khouri, in his guidebook to Amman, says that it was originally a Roman temple, dedicated to Hercules, later converted to a Christian church. A. Northedge et al. give a brief description of the church, calling it a "basilical chapel" that can be compared with the memorial church in Jerash. The church was mentioned by M. Piccirillo as one dedicated to St. George, based on the inscription. Finally, C. Kanellopoulos discussed the site and the Herakles inscription in relation to the Great Temple on Jebel al-QalÕa.