Capernaum
Cafarnaúm, Cafarnaum, Cafarnaum or Capernaum (Hebrew כְּפַר נָחוּם [Kəfar Nāḥūm], “people of Nahum") was an Israelite fishing village in Galilee, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, north of present-day Israel. Since its discovery in the early XX century, it has been an archaeological site, located 2.5 km from Tabgha and 15 km from the city of Tiberias, on the northwest bank of the lake.
It is known by Christians as "the city of Jesus", named in the New Testament. It was one of the places chosen by Jesus of Nazareth to transmit his message and perform some of his miracles.
Etymology
The Semitic name for the small town was Kfar Nahum ("town of Nahum"), a possible reference to the prophet Nahum. In the writings of Flavio Josefo, the name is translated in Greek like Kαφαρναουμ (Kapharnaum). In Arabic, this place is called Tell Hum, that is, the hill (Tell) of Hum (short for Nahum).
In the New Testament
The town is mentioned in all four gospels (Matthew 4:13, 8:5, 11:23, 17:24, Mark 1:21, 2:1, 9:33, Luke 4:23, 31,7:1, 10:15, John 2:12, 4:46, 6:17, 24,59), where it is mentioned that it was near the places where the apostles came from. Simón Pedro, Andrés, Santiago and Juan, as well as Mateo. The gospel of Christ was first preached beginning from Capernaum.
Recovery of Capernaum
In 1838, American Biblical geographer Edward Robinson discovered the ruins here. The ancient Capernaum appeared to the first explorers as a desolate and sad place.
In 1866, British explorer Captain Charles W. Wilson identified the remains of a large synagogue. In 1894 the Franciscan Friar Giuseppe Baldi of Naples, on behalf of the Custody of the Holy Land, managed to acquire a good part of the area from the Bedouins.
The Franciscans erected a fence to protect the ruins from frequent looting; they planted palm trees and eucalyptus brought from Australia to create a small oasis to welcome pilgrims to this area located 210 meters below sea level. They also built a small port to facilitate entry through the lake. These works gained momentum under the direction of the Franciscan Virgilio Corbo.
Archaeological discoveries
The most important excavations began in 1905, under the direction of the Germans Heinrich Kohl and Carl Watzinger and were continued by the Franciscans Friar Vendelin von Benden (1905-1915) and Gaudencio Orfali (1921-1926). The results were the discovery of two public buildings and an octagonal Byzantine church, and the excavation of the aforementioned synagogue (which was partially restored by Father Orfali).
Later, in 1968, excavations were resumed by the Franciscans Corbo and Stanislao Loffreda, with financial help from the Italian government. During this stage, the greatest discovery was the house of San Pedro, plus some neighborhoods of the town from the evangelical era. These excavations continued until 1986.
History of the village
Based on the literary sources and the results of the excavations, it has been possible to reconstruct part of the history of this town.
Remains of paleolithic flint and walls and pavements from the second millennium BC were found. C. (Middle and Late Bronze Age). There is no trace of occupation in the Israelite period (1200-587 BC). The town is not mentioned in the Old Testament.
The excavations revealed that Capernaum was established at the beginning of the Hasmonean Dynasty, around the s. II a. C. and was abandoned around the 11th century. Archaeologically it was demonstrated that the city already existed in the s. II a. C. the site did not have any defensive wall and extended along the shore of the lake, from east to west about 300 meters, while from south to north it reached 150 m.
Several remains from this period have been found under the great synagogue of the s. IV d. C. discovered in 1866; under the octagonal church and particularly in the western area. From the lake towards the north it was possible to see a continuous row of rooms with a length of about 110 meters. This seems to be the nucleus of the settlement, from which Capernaum spread in all directions in the following centuries. The cemetery was 200 m from the synagogue; it had an extension of 3 km, up to the agricultural area of Tabgha. A Roman mausoleum was found. The only houses from Roman times found so far are those built in the row that goes from the synagogue to the so-called "sacred island".
Description of the village
The plan of the town was fairly regular. On both sides of a wide street with a north-south orientation, small neighborhoods or islands arose, limited by small cross streets and dead-end streets. The walls were built with rough basalt blocks and reinforced with stone and mud. There are no large differences in economic level. The private houses so far excavated were humble cells that received light through a series of openings or low windows. They were rooms with light ceilings, grouped around a large patio. This community open patio was the largest and most important point, due to the climatic conditions of the area, where in summer the temperature reaches 35 °C. The grinding stones and the ovens made of refractory earth were always in the patio. Around the open courtyard were stone stairs leading to the terraces.
The discovery of this type of ladder sheds light on the Gospel account of the paralytic being lowered through the roof (Mark 2:1-12). Due to the type of construction, it was not difficult to go up to the roof via the patio staircase and remove a part to lower the individual "Jesus heals a paralytic".
Economy
The economic resources came from fishing, agriculture, the manufacturing industry of stone, clay and glass utensils and trade. Objects were found mostly made of stone and clay: basalt mills for grinding grain or for pressing olives; pots, plates, amphoras and lamps; also fishing hooks, awls and spindles for weaving. The mill was a true capital that was inherited from father to son for many centuries.
In 1986, during an unusual downfall of the lake, an old fishing boat dating from the s was discovered. I a. C. It had a length of 8 meters and was preserved in the mud. After hard work, which should have been done before the rising waters, the boat was removed from the site to its current location near Kibbutz Ginosar.
Under the great white synagogue, in 1981 the remains of a s. I d. C., built with black basaltic stone. Very likely it is the synagogue of which the gospels speak to us, according to which during the s. I d. C. Capernaum was the scene of many events in the life of Jesus Christ. It was the home of his first disciples: Andrew, Matthew and Peter. The Jewish writings of the time identify Capernaum as one of the localities where minim (heretics or sectarians) lived, in this case the Judeo-Christians. No evidence has been found to suggest that Capernaum was involved in the bloody Jewish uprisings against the Romans in the years 70 and 135, and documents show that the Jewish population was the majority there until the IV.
Peter's House
Archaeologists found in 1968, in an area called "sacred island", what has been considered "Peter's house", built at the end of the Hellenistic period. Almost square in shape, with sides of about 7.50 m, it communicated with a patio to the south and another to the north. On the eastern side, in a free space, there was a refractory earth oven. The threshold through which one entered the north patio is still in good condition. The house denotes a very complex history.
From the second half of the s. I d. C. begins to distinguish itself from all the other houses that have been excavated. The walls were carefully plastered; the floor was covered with layers of plaster and it was adapted as a domestic church (domus-ecclesia), where the Judeo-Christians of the city met. There are very few remains of domestic ceramics from this period and, on the other hand, a large number of lamps were found.
Transformation in the fourth century
At the end of the IV century, this house-church was adapted to receive pilgrims and was surrounded by a wall of impressive height which covered a perimeter of 112.25 m. Built with mortar, it reaches a height of 2.30 m on the north side. Its purpose was twofold: to frame the house of San Pedro as the focal point of the sacred island and to accentuate its sacredness. It had two doors: one in the southwest corner and the other in the northwest corner. Pedro's house was extensively touched up and expanded. The venerated room, originally square, was divided into two rectangular spaces joined by a central arch. There was also some improvement in the general style of life: the other houses were built with good mortar and fine imported pottery was used. The pilgrim Egeria who visited the Holy Land at the end of the s. IV wrote:
In Capernaum is the house of the Prince of the Apostles (Pedro) which was transformed into a church, although the walls were the same.
The octagonal church
In the second half of the V century, the Byzantines dismantled the entire holy island to build the octagonal church on top, which it remained in use until the VII century. The church is made up of a central octagon with eight pillars, an external octagon with thresholds still in situ, and a gallery or portico that led both inside the church and to the rooms located to the east., which communicated through a corridor. Later this corridor was blocked and in the center of the eastern side an apse was built with a baptismal pool, from which there were two steps on each side, and the outlet for the water used in the rite.
The floor of the church was mosaic. On the portico it was a purely geometric motif with four rows of contiguous circles and little crosses. In the area of the external octagon, the mosaics found represented flora and fauna, with a style similar to that found in the Basilica of the Multiplication of the Loaves in Tabgha. In the central octagon, the mosaic was composed of a strip with goblet flowers, a field of fish scales with little flowers, and a large circle with a peacock in the center.
It is important to highlight the close relationship between the octagonal church and the house of Saint Peter: the Byzantines, when building the new church, placed the central octagon exactly on the walls of the house, in order to perpetuate the exact location of the same. From that moment on, the humbleness of the house could no longer be seen because it was covered by the mosaics of the new structure.
Apparently during the Roman and Byzantine periods the city was not destroyed due to warfare or natural causes. Even the transition to the Arab period in the VII century d. C. was not marked by a sudden global destruction and although several houses were abandoned, others continued in use in this period.
Decay
The city was severely damaged by the 749 earthquake, and was rebuilt a short distance to the northeast, on the site of the present-day Greek Orthodox Church of the Seven Apostles, built in 1931.
Under the Umayyad rulers of Damascus the site was fully reoccupied and both the synagogue and the octagonal church were abandoned. During the Abassid dynasty of Baghdad the prosperity of Capernaum declined greatly. Some new buildings went up during the 12th century century, but the village was already a heap of ruins at that time.
The White Synagogue
The ruins of the building dating from the centuryiv, discovered by Wilson, are notable among the humble dwellings of the village, since they are built almost exclusively with white blocks of calcareous stone brought from distant quarries (and therefore uncommon in this region). The walls are erected on top of the hiladas belonging to the previous synagogue, of black basaltic stone typical of the region. Below the most recent synagogue floor is still the soil of the previous synagogue.
The flat of the white synagogue is similar to that of the synagogue of the same century in Korazim (4 kilometres north) and that of the synagogue of Baram, of the centuryiii, in the north of Galilee, but the architectural ornamentation of the building of Cafarnaun is much more elaborate, with Corinthian capitals and intricate reliefs carved in stone.
The building consists of four parts: the prayer room, the eastern courtyard, the southern balustrade and a small room northwest of the construction. The prayer room measures 24,40 x 18,65 meters, with the facade southward, looking at Jerusalem (as usual). The inner walls were revoked and painted with high-level stunts, found during the excavations. Two inscriptions have been preserved from the old synagogue, one in Greek and the other in Aramaic, which recall the well-made ones that facilitated the construction of the building.
The synagogue, as it was in 381, was described by the Spanish pilgrim Egeria, who wrote that the access to the structure consisted of several steps and that the building was built with labrada stone.
The synagogue and the Cafarnaun church were destroyed at the beginning of the centuryvii (before the Muslim conquest of 636). Because of the continuing tensions between the Christian and Jewish communities, it has been suggested that the church may have been destroyed during the Persian invasion in 614, and the synagogue destroyed 15 years later as an act of revenge during the brief restoration of the Byzantine government.Papal visit
In March 2000, John Paul II, during his trip to Israel, visited the ruins of Capernaum, among other cities.