khanni, Kh

The building was constructed at the top of the hill and five building phases were discerned in it.

In the first phase, in the fourth or the beginning of the fifth century CE, the church was built (Loci 100, 111, 116) above an arcosolium cave (Locus 121) that predates the structure. The church consisted of a long hall without columns and was paved with a plain mosaic decorated with geometric patterns and crosses. During this phase the arcosolia chambers were hewn and joined together with the crypt located below the apse of the church (Loci 122, 123) and the eastern opening to the crypt was hewn outside the eastern wall of the church; this entrance was sealed with a round roll-stone. The crypt was partly excavated and the skeletal remains of several women were uncovered. Next to the southern part of the nave, in the northern part of Locus 110 and below Locus 102, was built another room in which there was a black and white mosaic decorated with a geometric pattern. During this initial phase there was probably no monastery at the site; rather there was a church that was built on a hallowed burial cave that attracted local pilgrimage to it.

In the second phase, in the fifth century CE, the monastery was completely built. The opening to the monastery was in its southern side, next to the southwestern corner of the structure, and was entered by way of a double door. Guarding the doorway was an arched two story tower: the ground floor served as an anteroom to the monastery and the upper story was probably a guardroom. From the anteroom (Locus 140) one entered the entrance hall (Locus 115) which was paved with a coarse white, red and black mosaic; and to the east toward a large room whose roof was borne atop a double vault (Loci 110, 119). This room probably served as the living quarters of the monastery’s abbess and as the offices of the monastery. From the entrance hall, which was probably covered by a roof, one could go into the nave by way of a gate with monumental doorjambs. The floor of the nave was paved with a geometric mosaic. East of the nave was the apse which was built of monumental stones. The apse served as a bema; it was separated from the nave by a marble chancel screen and was half a meter higher than the nave. A small section of a mosaic survived in the apse and the pattern depicted in it is reminiscent of a seven branched candelabrum and a coalpan. If this was indeed a candelabrum this is an anomaly for churches and attests to a sacred tradition that it associated with Judaism or the Samaritan religion. An altar table was built in the center of the apse.

In the third phase, in the sixth century CE, the mosaic floors in the nave, apse and southeastern room (Locus 102) of the church were replaced with polychrome mosaics composed of small white, black, gray, yellow, green, blue, orange and dark red tesserae.

The mosaic in Locus 102 resembles Pattern J2 according to Avi-Yonah’s classification. That is to say it consists of a frame in which there is an intertwined pattern of alternating square and round medallions. A faunal or floral scene that was mostly composed of birds, baskets of fruit and different plants was depicted in each of the medallions. Incorporated in one of the medallions was a Greek inscription that translates: “for the sake of the salvation of Kyriokos, son of Yeshua, and his son John the deacon”. There were a total of sfifty four medallions that were arranged in nine rows the length of the room and in 6 rows across.

The mosaic in the nave survived in several sections along the eastern side of the sanctuary and in its southwestern corner. From what was preserved of the mosaic in that corner one can see there were once intricate patterns of animals, possibly people, flora and geometric decorations. In the frame there was an amphora and two birds on either side of it that underwent iconoclasm. The mosaic has two frames, one within the other, made of a running wavy pattern. This mosaic also included the use of colored glass together with different kinds of colored tesserae.

Some changes were made in the vicinity of the residential quarters during this phase which was a time when the monastery flourished and reached its peak occupation. The passages were made smaller so that several seclusion rooms could be added for the nuns.

In the fourth phase, a time of iconoclasm in the eighth century CE, the human and animal images depicted in the monastery’s mosaics were intentionally defaced. This phase began toward the end of the Umayyad period, possibly in the wake of the decree by the caliph Yazid II which banned the portrayal of human beings and animals and ordered they be removed from public places and possibly due to the trend that spread throughout Christianity of destroying icons; the latter was an influence of Islam and occurred even in places that remained under Byzantine control. In the eighth century CE it was a widely accepted belief amongst Christians that the worship of icons and saints was a form of idolatry that contradicted to a certain extent the belief in God; hence, numerous icons were burned and mosaics were defaced that contained images, with no connection to Yazid’s decree.

The destruction that was done to the monastery’s mosaics was repaired by means of a coarse mosaic or plaster. In the repair to the mosaic of the snave an inscription was added that blessed the monastery’s abbess – proof that the site was a women’s monastery.

In the fifth phase, which began in the latter part of the ninth century CE, the monastery was abandoned, its roofs were dismantled and mosaics were plundered. Women and girls from the surrounding villages who were probably Muslim were buried in the ruins of the monastery. The burials in the monastery’s ruins continued throughout the Middle Ages and it attests to the continued veneration of what was considered feminine and chaste about the place.

The main approach to the monastery complex was from the south, from a place where the slope was especially moderate. The path was paved and c. 2 meters wide.

The area between the two buildings was used as an open courtyard that was partly paved.

 

Three water cisterns were hewn in the monastery complex. The eastern cistern (Locus 127), located east of Room 102, was bell-shaped and treated with a fine layer of hydraulic plaster. This cistern received the runoff from the eastern part of Building B and the southern part of Building A. The water flowed via gutters and hewn channels to a large settling pit from which it was conveyed to another, smaller settling pit and on to the cistern.

The second cistern was hewn in the northern courtyard at the back of the monastery (Locus 131). This cistern was also equipped with a settling pit.

The third water cistern was hewn in the western part of the monastery complex. It drained the atrium, narthex and most of the area of Building B.

The cistern was totally destroyed as a result of development activity conducted at the site and only the cistern’s capstone was discovered which was not in situ.