A gravestone dating back more than 1,400 years has been accidentally found by a park worker in southern Israel clearing a nature trail.
The stone, which dates to the late 6th or early seventh century, is inscribed in Greek and reads ‘Blessed Maria, who lived very much,’ with her date of death listed as February 9th.
The 10-inch round stone was first found at Nitzana National Park in the Negev desert, near the border with Egypt.
The area was a major Christian development at the time of Maria’s death and archaeologists believe it would have been part of its upper class.
Originally excavated in the 1930s, Nitzana is considered a major site in the transition between Byzantine and early Islamists in the Levant.
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The inscription, in Greek, reads ‘Blessed Maria, who lived very much,’ with a date of death listed as 9 February
The worker who found the sign was employed by the Israeli Parks and Nature Authority as part of Project 500, which will find jobs for people affected by the pandemic.
They left it at the end of a path, where it was discovered by David Palmach, director of the Nitzana City of Education.
Realizing that there was an inscription, Palmach took a photograph of the artifact and took it to keep it safe before contacting authorities.
Archaeologist Leah Di Segni from Hebrew University translated the century-old inscription.
The ancient tombstone from the late 6th century was found in a nature park in Israel
The woman, Maria, is believed to have been a Christian and a man of stature.
‘In the fifth and sixth centuries CE, Nitzana was a center for nearby villages and towns,’ said Tali Erickson-Gini of the Israeli Antiquities Authority.
The tombstone would have been used in one of the Christian cemeteries around the ancient settlement, according to Erickson-Gini.
Today, Nitzana is home to an educational environment city, where international students learn about ecology, history and culture.
However, it was established in the first century BC as a road station on a major trade route and was inhabited from time to time for about 1,300 years.
Situated in the Negev desert near the Egyptian border, Nitzana is considered a major site in the transition between Byzantine and early Islamists.
Nitzana was founded in the first century BC as a road station on a major trade route and was inhabited from time to time for about 1,300 years. At the time of Maria’s death, it was a major Christian settlement, with churches, a stronghold, a monastery and a waypoint for Christian pilgrims.
Prior to the fifth and sixth centuries, Nitzana had churches, an army stronghold, a monastery and a pilgrimage station for Christian pilgrims to Santa Katarina, a supposed site of Mount Sinai.
Plague and volcanic winter during the sixth century may have devastated the area’s Christian communities, according to Smithsonian magazine, which led to Islamic settlement in the seventh century.
Nitzana was finally abandoned in the 10th century and its name was forgotten until archaeological excavations in the 1930s discovered a collection of papyrus detailing church, family and military records.
The archive had the name ‘Nessana’.
Burial materials such as this stone were found in subsequent excavations.
‘Unlike other ancient cities in the Negev, we have little information about the cemeteries around Nitzana,’ said IAA archaeologist Pablo Betzer.
The discovery of any such writing could improve our interpretation of the boundaries of the cemeteries, thus helping to reconstruct the boundaries of the city itself, which has not yet been proven.