Huge Underground Chamber Found--Early Christian Refuge?

A 2,000-year-old underground chamber has been discovered in Israel's Jordan Valley.

The largest human-made cave in Israel, the 1-acre (0.4-hectare) space is thought to have begun as a quarry. In subsequent centuries it may have served as a monastery, hideout for persecuted Christians, or Roman army base, experts say.

Archaeologists working in the valley found the cave this past March when they came across a hole in a rock face.

As they were about to enter, two fearful-looking Bedouins appeared and warned the team that hyenas and wolves inhabited the cave.

But science prevailed, said team leader Adam Zertal, and once underground, "our eyes opened to see something unimaginable."

The archaeologists peered into a huge hall lined with 22 thick pillars—giving the "impression of a palace," added Zertal, of the University of Haifa in Israel.

"We didn't have much light—it was complete darkness," he said. But "even with the torches, we saw how glorious it looks."

Etched into those columns were 31 Christian crosses, Roman letters, a Zodiac sign, and what looks like the Roman army's pennant—all of which surprised the researchers.

"It surely was not just a quarry," Zertal said.

Center of Activity

Just before A.D. 1, when the chamber's creation likely began, the Roman-appointed King Herod the Great, who ruled the region from 37 to 4 B.C., had returned from Rome with plans to develop the Jordan Valley

The newfound site is about 3.1 miles (5 kilometers) from Jericho, even then a metropolis, so a quarry "makes sense in the Jordan Valley, which was then a center of activity, agriculture, and building," Zertal said.

The researchers found recesses in the columns where people placed oil lamps to provide light, as well as holes through which leashes for work animals could have been tied.

But the chamber's run as a quarry likely lasted only about 400 to 500 years. What came next is a bigger mystery.

Underground Monastery?

The engraved crosses, dated to no later than A.D. 600, suggest that the artifical cave could have become a monastery, Zertal said.

Jodi Magness, an expert in early Judaism, said the crosses alone don't point to the existence of a church, since random pilgrims may have entered and made the carvings—a common phenomenon.

Churches at that time would have also had an altar, apse, and other "liturgical furniture," she explained, though it could be that such evidence has not yet been found in the cave.

But "it's certainly not far-fetched that Christian presence in the cave is associated with monastic activity, because the area is a hotbed of monastic activity," said Magness, a senior chair in the department of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, who was not involved with the cave's excavation.

Hideout for Persecuted Christians?

Team leader Zertal also suggested that the quarry may have been used as a hiding place for the persecuted.

For example, before Roman Emperor Constantine I legalized Christianity in 313, Christians had often been shunned in the empire.

But UNC's Magness said the uncertainty of the carvings' dates makes it difficult to say whether Christians took refuge there.

"I would want to see some hard evidence that you can date that Christian presence to the date before Constantine," Magness said. "How do we know crosses [were] put on walls before 313?"

Zertal added that the Roman army symbol also means it's possible that Roman Empire soldiers hid here. "It's a perfect place to hold an army—a place nobody can see."

$64,000 Question

The "$64,000 question" now is why the unusual quarry was 32 feet (10 meters) underground, Zertal said. Most quarries are aboveground, so workers don't have to lift heavy rocks quite as far.

Yet UNC's Magness said underground quarries are not that unusual in the region.

She described a similar quarry near Jerusalem that had been used to make stone vessels, such as plates, mugs, and bowls, sometime between 538 B.C. to A.D. 70.

It's also not unusual, she added, that a quarry would be recycled for other purposes later.