The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus (42 page)

In particular, the most holy sites under the CA were an elaborate winemaking installation. The main elements of the complex are noted in
Illus
.
5.4.
The press [A] was located in the so-called “Virgin’s Kitchen,”
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a grotto 10 m north of the Chapel of the Angel. The remaining elements of the winemaking complex were downhill (south) of the press. A tunnel linked the press to the “Grotto of the Annunciation” [B] where the Virgin reputedly lived. This was probably a treading area. From there, the wine went to a stepped basin [C] which the tradition insists was a miqve, but which Joan Taylor has shown was a wine collecting vat. She has analyzed the various work installations, and writes:
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The entire area was, during the Roman period, a hive of agricultural activity; this makes it extremely improbable that any cultic use was made of its caves or basins. Only 20 metres away from basin no 12…[C] there is a wine-pressing zone with a small sloping treading area (no. 34, in the ‘Kitchen of the Virgin’ [A]), about 3 metres square and 40 centimetres deep, and an underground fermenting vat (no. 35) to which the juice ran through a hole. As was stated above, this complex was connected to the Grotto of the Annunciation (no. 31[B]) by a tunnel… so that it is safe to assume that the cave formed part of the complex.
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Nevertheless, the guidebooks carefully point out the exact spots where Mary sat and where the angel stood, and the adjoining loci where the Blessed Virgin and Jesus the adolescent may have lived. For Christians, this is the most venerated place in all the Holy Land outside of Jerusalem. For over fifteen centuries countless prayers have been offered here, and the thoughts of the pilgrim have fallen into the deepest meditation. For those who know the truth, it is a surreal scene, one beyond easy explanation. All of Christendom, as it were, pays heartfelt tribute here to an illusion. The moment of wonder before a humble cave, the wide eyes of the youth, the submissive gaze of the aged—these witness nevertheless to a sublime fact. It is one that even science cannot, and should not, take away. That wonder, those eyes, that gaze—they are timeless and not linked to any place.
They
are what is truly holy, not a piece of earth.

Early in the twentieth century, a cave a few meters northwest of the Chapel of the Angel suggested tantalizing possibilities to Father Viaud.
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He conducted an exploratory excavation, which at that time was a few meters outside the north wall of the (much smaller) Church of the Annunciation. Viaud dug approximately one meter but, finding nothing, he instructed the workmen to refill the hole and left for the day. When one of the laborers asked permission to dig down to bedrock, Viaud assented. Later that evening the workman came running up to the priest and exclaimed excitedly, “Father, a statue!” When Viaud arrived on the scene several men were frantically uncovering five beautiful capitals, each ornately incised with reliefs of apostles and biblical figures.
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The capitals date to Crusader times, and we now know that they were buried for safety in 1187 CE, in the days immediately before Saladin’s forces retook Nazareth. Viaud considered the surrounding grotto more significant than the capitals themselves:

If indeed, as I believe, [
the grotto
] was contemporary with the Holy Family, it must have had some connection with the Holy Family itself, and the examination of the internal arrangement of the one can help us understand the primitive arrangement of the other, that is, of the grotto of the Annunciation and of the room which preceded it. For us, nothing can be of greater interest.  (Viaud 57)

The priest excavated the chamber with the utmost reverence. The Catholic Church has clearly embraced the troglodyte tradition, despite our observation that humidity renders the caves of Lower Galilee uninhabitable during the wet season.
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In his book,
Nazareth et ses deux Èglises
, Viaud devotes several pages and illustrations to this grotto. He asks: “What could this room have been?” A comparison with
Illus
.
5.3
(“x”) above shows that it is located in a rare level portion of the venerated area.
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In Viaud’s photo it indeed appears to have a level floor.

The Frenchman does not definitively answer his own question. In one photo an unworked rock column rises in the middle of the room—it is ugly and scarcely reminds one of a habitation. A meter away a hole appears in the ground—a silo for storing grain. One would suppose these features exclude the room from having been a domicile, yet the priest asks: “Could it have been the habitation of the parents of the Holy Family?” Finding no proof, he contents himself with the possibility that “Mary and Joseph, and even the child Jesus, visited [
that rom
] some times. This alone gives it a great value.”
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Bagatti is circumspect regarding the associations of this grotto (his locus 41) with the Holy Family.
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He notes typical holes in the wall “for tying animals” and the presence of a feeding trough (manger) at one end. He maintains that these elements of a stable are “not original” and do not go back to Roman times. Adjoining the grotto is a large bread oven (locus 40) which the Italian insists was “strictly for family use and not a public bakery.” Except in wealthy homes, however, ovens in ancient times were communal property, not private, as they still are today in poorer parts of the world. In any event, one wonders how the archaeologist knows such details of daily life long ago when larger questions remain undecided. Certainly, his observation regarding the oven is consistent with the need to find domestic evidence on the hillside.

 The base of the oven was formed of a reused millstone (
Exc
. 62). This detail reveals that (like the stable) the oven postdates Roman times. Furthermore, it shows that the earlier (Roman) stratum was characterized by agricultural evidence. Millstones, silos, cisterns, and a nearby press complex all unambiguously demonstrate that this was a busy agricultural area in antiquity. Concurrently, the tombs show that the entire hillside was used for burial.

The Church of St. Joseph

Approximately 100 m north of the CA is the more modest Church of St. Joseph. The terrain and foundation under the church are given in
Illus
.
5.4
, which is a computer scan from Viaud’s 1910 book. The interior floor of the church is the top level of the diagram, whose foundation has been considerably built up to the east (left) to compensate for the slope of the hill.

Underneath the church is the most incredible complex of hollows yet found in the Nazareth basin.
Illus
.
5.5
shows a quadruple silo together with a large grotto. Not shown in the illustration are other cisterns underneath the church, as well as four additional silos (some double) in the floor of the “Great Grotto.”
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Taylor has shown that a rock-cut basin on the premises was a collecting vat “used in wine-making.” She writes that it was “associated with other agricultural installations—cisterns, silos, another basin, and a large cave—found under the Church of St. Joseph… The entire area was, during the Roman period, a hive of agricultural activity.”
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Another wine press complex exists under the Church of the Annunciation.

The quadruple silo is aligned vertically, and the second silo has been artificially extended to make the grotto, which measures 10×5 m and 2 m in height. A long corridor connects this grotto with others beyond the premises of the church. “Similar corridors,” writes Viaud, “branch off to the east and west.” He notes niches for lamps here and there.

“What is this grotto?” asks Viaud. “We have found no cultic traces,” he adds, “but it was inhabited and is certainly very ancient.” Like Bagatti after him, Viaud here focuses upon habitations that do not and could not exist. First of all, the floor of the grotto, as can be seen from the illustration, is not level. Secondly, it has no less than five silos in the floor of the grotto itself, four of which are not shown in the illustration. These silos would render habitation in the chamber inconvenient, to say the least, and probably dangerous, too. We may ask: what need did a private family have for five large silos in the ground, most of them multiple? In sum, it is palpably obvious that no one lived there. The site was clearly part of the settlement’s agricultural storage area.

Viaud attempts to link the CJ with a description furnished by Arculf, the seventh century pilgrim. The latter noted a church “in the middle of the town.” Viaud writes that “This condition appears quite well fulfilled by the church with which we are here concerned.” It does not occur to the priest that the ancient village had nothing to do with the hillside. Hence, “in the middle of the town” certainly meant in a different place. This is made plain by Arculf’s next observation that under the church there was a spring.
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Arculf is obviously describing the church over Mary’s Spring which we have discussed above, known today as the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation. Viaud should have been aware of this competing tradition, for the Greeks have been in the Nazareth basin longer than the Latins. In any case, he is not dissuaded, and looking about for ancient signs of water he indeed finds them. Two “basins” (
vasques
) persuade Viaud that “rather powerful channels led abundant waters to this spot.”
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With that interesting observation we take leave of the priest’s pious digression.