JERUSALEM, ISRAEL—A large Byzantine-era church and additional rooms that may have served as living quarters and storage space have been uncovered near the town of Abu Ghosh, during work to expand the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway. The church, placed near a spring, had a side chapel with a floor of white stone and a baptismal font in the shape of a four-leaf clover. Red-colored plaster among the rubble at the site indicates that the church’s walls were decorated with frescoes. Oil lamps, coins, glass vessels, marble fragments, and mother-of-pearl shells were also recovered. “The road station and its church were built in the Byzantine period beside the ancient road leading between Jerusalem and the coastal plain. This road station ceased to be used at the end of the Byzantine period, although the road beside which it was built was renewed and continued to be in use until modern times,” Annette Nagar of the Israel Antiquities Authority told The Times of Israel. To read about a Byzantine church that made our last Top 10 Discoveries of the Year list, go to "Sunken Byzantine Basilica."
