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 concept
setting
virtual
tour
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 Mosaics
The church's nave, chancel,
and and apse were paved with marble, but
the rest of the church, including the
narthex, was paved with mosaics, but only
fragments now remain. Most of the mosaics
were made of large tesserae, mainly in
white, with some being red, yellow, or
blue. No shapes could be seen in the
mosaic of the sacristy, while those in the
chancel area and the northern aisle (in
front of the cave and adjacent to the
baptismal font) have the form of flowers.
The mosaic south of the cave includes a
Greek cross in the northwest corner. In
the narthex, the same flower shapes can be
found on mosaics near the church entrance
and in the northern part of the narthex.
In the latter, we also find a border of
white, blue, red, and yellow tesserae,
with the pieces within this border placed
diagonally.
In the
southern room of the church, opposite the
cave, we find the remains of what was once
a colorful mosaic made with small tesserae
pieces. It has a white border and then a
sequence of blue, red, yellow and, again,
white lines. West of this border are the
remnants of acanthus scrolls of yellow,
red, blue, green and white colors against
a dark greenish-blue background, within
which we find a white cross-shaped
flower.
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The edges
of the acanthus leaves have been outlined,
and there is an attempt at creating color
gradations. Very similar scrolls are found
in the Chapel of Suwayfiyah. Those scrolls
have within them foliate heads and figures
of animals and birds (Piccirillo 1993:
264). The Chapel of Khirbet el-Kursi, near
Amman, and the Church of St. Kyriakos at
el-Quwaysmah also have similar borders.
Such motifs are not limited to the area of
'Amman, but can also be found in Madaba,
in the Chapel of the Martyr Thoedore (A.D.
562), the Church of el-Khadr and the
Church of the Apostles which is dated to
A.D. 578 (Piccirillo 1993: 106, 117, 129,
265, 268). The latter is the closest
parallel to our mosaic as it has a dark,
blackish background with white
cross-shaped flowers. Since the date of
that mosaic is known, our fragmentary
border can probably also be dated to the
late 6th century. This would coincide well
with Bagatti's (1973: 276-77) dating of
the St. George inscription to the end of
the 6th or beginning of the 7th century.
The baptismal font from Kursi, mentioned
above, which is similar to the font here
is also dated to the end of the 6th
century. Thus, the parallels indicate that
the church was in use in that period. On
the basis of the present evidence, it is
impossible to say when it was
built.
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