Baḥan — The Inscriptions

Five inscriptions, set in the mosaic floors of the church at Baḥan, were published in the past more than once on the base of a transcription made in situ, as neither the mosaics not photographs were available when the inscriptions were studied. Visual documentation has now become available for almost all the inscriptions, and it has showed that the transcriptions were defective. The published editions must therefore be corrected, and in some cases totally rejected. This paper offers new readings and a new interpretation of the site: the church is not part of a monastery, as it was long taken for granted, but is the nerve centre of an estate owned by the Church of Caesarea and administered by a warden, a priest, on its behalf. A date in the second third of the sixth century is suggested.