Cactus House
In Nazareth, a few feet from the location of the ancient well known as Mary’s Well is a small tourist shop selling jewelry, clothing, and olive wood products to tourists. The hill behind the shop is known locally as Tel el-Sabra or the hill of the cacti, thus the name Cactus House is given to this small shop which was purchased in 1993 by Elias and Martina Shama.
Shortly after purchasing the store, they began the work of remodeling the store’s floor and walls and expanding the area beneath the store for storage. On the main floor, Elias Shama immediately uncovered a section of first-century terracotta tiles.
In digging out the basement area, more tiles were uncovered as well as a furnace area and brick support columns with a marble floor. The marble floor would have been imported from outside the area at a great expense.
The Shamas contacted the Israeli Antiquities Authority and were told that the materials they were finding were part of a turkish bathhouse built in 1887 by Tanous Qa'war, the first Mayor of Nazareth. Elias and Martina were not convinced with the information they received from the IAA and they eventually were in contact with Dr. Richard Freud of the Maurice Greenberg Centre for Judaic Studies at Hartford University in Connecticut.
A team of experts including Dr. Freud came to the Cactus House to perform ground penetrating radar (GPR) on the floor of the tea room in the lower part of Cactus House as well as two locations outside the shop. (JBFDBHRS:2003) Their findings included a carbon dating of some materials found beneath Cactus House to the crusader era with an additional structure beneath the floor of that bathhouse dating to an earlier period.
What Elias Shama has uncovered in his amateur excavations of his store is truly exciting. He has uncovered a large segment of tunnels and a furnace area which is only part of an even larger bathhouse area. His basement contains the hippocaust for the caldarium of an ancient bathhouse. Usually, bathhouses contained a caldarium (hot bath), a tepidarium (lukewarm bath) and a frigidarium (cold water bath). Such a large bathhouse would only have been built to support a large community or a large garrison of soldiers to be stationed in the area.
This flies in the face of what had previously been known from archaeology and historical records concerning the small, reclusive, uncultured village known as ancient Nazareth.
Historically in Nazareth, there are two churches which both claim to be the place of the annunciation to Mary, the mother of Jesus. The first and more widely received is the Church of the Annunciation affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church located within walking distance of Mary’s Well. The basilica of the Roman Church of the Annunciation is traditionally believed to be built over the grotto identified as the location of Mary’s home in Nazareth where the angel Gabriel visited her there. There is nothing tangible that supports the RCC beliefs concerning the Church of the Annunciation. Fr. Bellarmino Bagatti, now deceased, but former professor at the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum at Flagellation, Jerusalem, excavated the area (1955-1968) and it is considered to be the most completely documented sacred site in Israel. But still, no absolute evidence of Mary, Jesus, or Joseph.
Back at Mary’s Well, within a few steps is St. Gabriel Greek Orthodox Church which, according to the non-canonized text of the Book of James, is the location of the annunciation. Their belief is that the angel Gabriel visited Mary at the well with the announcement of the coming Incarnation of God. Inside the Greek Orthodox Church are several areas which the Church claims to support this belief.
One historical record is significant concerning Cactus house. It is the record of Rabbi Moshe Bassola of Ancona who visited the area of Nazareth five hundred years ago. The published statement from Rabbi Bassola is, “We came from Kfar Kana, arriving the next day in Nazareth, where the Christian Jesus lived. The citizens told me that there existed a hot bathhouse where the Mother of Jesus immersed herself.”
Problems arise concerning continued excavations at Cactus House. Present-day Nazareth is an Arab city of 70,000 people without concerns for evidences of the Christian faith. If future excavators were to find evidences of the Holy Family in the area of Mary’s Well, the prominent tourist point and religious affiliation would be shifted from the Roman Church of the Annunciation to the Cactus House. The Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation might prove, then, to be more substantial in the life of Jesus and his family in Nazareth creating more conflict in the religious arena. Add into this, the Israeli Antiquities Authority holding the validation of licensing an excavation in the midst of religious conflict between Christians in an Arab Muslim community.
posted by ~serapha~ at 7:34 PM
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