Archaeology of Jesus’ Nazareth
Ken Dark
OUP, £25, 168 pages
This book reveals what archaeology can add to historical evidence about the Galilean village in which, according to St Luke, the Angel Gabriel foretold the coming of Christ to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Ken Dark focuses on the 19th-century convent of an order of nuns called the Sisters of Nazareth, which stood over what they believed to be earlier ecclesiastical buildings, and possibly the tomb of St Joseph or the house in which Jesus grew up. To bear out this theory, the Mother Superior, Marie Giraud, initiated one of the first archaeological projects ever directed by a woman. The nuns undertook the excavation, which was difficult and dangerous – roofs collapsed and a pocket of methane gas exploded. By 1913 they had made some exciting discoveries.
