Robert B. J. Mason

Near and Middle-Eastern Civilizations (NMC)
University of Toronto

Finds for the Museum

Objects from the restoration of the monastery to be exhibited in the museum

During the over 20 years of restoration and occupation of Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi, many artefacts have been discovered. Many of these are presently housed in a small museum within the old building of the monastery. Together with finds from the proposed archaeological survey and planned excavations, these are to be exhibited in a new museum.

Some of these objects date to the beginning of the foundation of the monastery. These include a bronze coin of the reign of Justinian, dated to 565 AD, found in the valley below the monastery. An object found in the restoration is a fragemnt of the Gospel of St. Mark written in Old Syriac, and dated to the 6th-8th century AD. One object that is no longer at the monastery is the Mar Musa censer, and object originally made in the 6-9th century AD in the Black Sea - Eastern Anatolia region. This was “found” at the site of the monastery in 1870 by Richard Burton, and displayed to the Society of Antiquaries, then sold to the British Museum where it now resides. A replica is in Mar Musa museum

>From the area of the monastic graveyard were found a number of textile fragments. These would have been wrapped around the bodies of the interred monks, and then wrapped around their bones when they were repositioned in natural niches in the rock face of the cave. During the restoration of the buildings an important assemblage of pottery was found. Oddly enough, although there is evidence of several hundred years of occupation at the monastery, this is not represented in the pottery found at the site. This is probably because during the height of the occupation, pottery and other discarded refuse would have been thrown into the wadi below the monastery buidling, and subsequently washed away in the floods.

The two ceramics fragments pictured here are examples of a large group of ceramics that are all of the same general style and date. They are clay-bodied earthenwares, which have either been slip-painted (for example the green one to the right), or been covered with a slip which has then been excised away in places to create a design (often called sgraffiato). The whole is then covered with a lead-fluxed glaze, sometimes coloured green by the presence of copper. Petrographic analysis of these ceramics indicates that they were all made in Damascus. The most diagnostic pieces may be dated to the 14th century AD. These ceramics therefore date to the period of the actual decline of the monastery, for instead of being discarded into the wadi, they were discarded into abandoned rooms, or used to patch the roof.

Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi
Home page for the project
Archaeology
Survey and excavations in the area of the monastery.
People
Members of the community, members of the project
Museum & Interpretive Centre
Planning a new facility to house the finds, and an interpretive centre
Finds
Objects from the restoration of the monastery to be exhibited in the museum
Environment
Natural history component of the planned museum
Church Frescoes
Medieval wall paintings, and their recreation in the museum