Archaeology in the News

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Christian monastery possibly pre-dating Islam found in UAE

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This March 14, 2022, handout photo from the Department of Archaeology and Tourism of Umm al-Quwain shows an ancient Christian monastery uncovered on Siniyah Island in Umm al-Quwain, United Arab Emirates. An ancient Christian monastery possibly dating as far back as the years before Islam rose across the Arabian Peninsula has been discovered on an island off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, officials announced Thursday, Nov. 3, 2022. (Credit: Nasser Muhsen Bin Tooq/Department of Archaeology and Tourism of Umm al-Quwain via AP)

SINIYAH ISLAND, United Arab Emirates — An ancient Christian monastery possibly dating as far back as the years before Islam spread across the Arabian Peninsula has been discovered on an island off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, officials announced Thursday.

The monastery on Siniyah Island, part of the sand-dune sheikhdom of Umm al-Quwain, sheds new light on the history of early Christianity along the shores of the Persian Gulf. It marks the second such monastery found in the Emirates, dating back as many as 1,400 years — long before its desert expanses gave birth to a thriving oil industry that led to a unified nation home to the high-rise towers of Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

The two monasteries became lost to history in the sands of time as scholars believe Christians slowly converted to Islam as that faith grew more prevalent in the region.

[…]

For Timothy Power, an associate professor of archaeology at the United Arab Emirates University who helped investigate the newly discovered monastery, the UAE today is a “melting pot of nations.”

“The fact that something similar was happening here a 1,000 years ago is really remarkable and this is a story that deserves to be told,” he said.

The monastery sits on Siniyah Island, which shields the Khor al-Beida marshlands in Umm al-Quwain, an emirate some 30 miles northeast of Dubai along the coast of the Persian Gulf. The island has a series of sandbars coming off of it like crooked fingers. On one, to the island’s northeast, archaeologists discovered the monastery.

Carbon dating of samples found in the monastery’s foundation date between 534 and 656. Islam’s Prophet Muhammad was born around 570 and died in 632 after conquering Mecca in present-day Saudi Arabia.

Viewed from above, the monastery on Siniyah Island’s floor plan suggests early Christian worshippers prayed within a single-aisle church at the monastery. Rooms within appear to hold a baptismal font, as well as an oven for baking bread for communion. A nave also likely held an altar and an installation for communion wine.

Next to the monastery sits a second building with four rooms, likely around a courtyard — possibly the home of an abbot or even a bishop in the early church.

Historians say early churches and monasteries spread along the Persian Gulf to the coasts of present-day Oman and all the way to India. Archaeologist have found other similar churches and monasteries in Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

In the early 1990s, archaeologists discovered the first Christian monastery in the UAE, on Sir Bani Yas Island, today a nature preserve and site of luxury hotels off the coast of Abu Dhabi, near the Saudi border. It similarly dates back to the same period as the new find in Umm al-Quwain.

However, evidence of early life along the Khor al-Beida marshlands in Umm al-Quwain dates as far back as the Neolithic period — suggesting continuous human inhabitance in the area for at least 10,000 years, Power said.

Today, the area near the marshland is more known for the low-cost liquor store at the emirate’s Barracuda Beach Resort. In recent months, authorities have demolished a hulking, Soviet-era cargo plane linked to a Russian gunrunner known as the “Merchant of Death” as it builds a bridge to Siniyah Island for a $675 million real estate development.

Power said that development spurred the archaeological work that discovered the monastery. That site and others will be fenced off and protected, he said.

“It’s a really fascinating discovery because in some ways it’s hidden history — it’s not something that’s widely known,” Power said.


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Post by sweetandsour »

Fascinating. How do they know for sure that those ruins were monasteries?
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Post by FredS »

sweetandsour wrote: 22 Nov 2022, 09:32 Fascinating. How do they know for sure that those ruins were monasteries?
Read the sign, I suppose.
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Post by sweetandsour »

FredS wrote: 22 Nov 2022, 11:13
sweetandsour wrote: 22 Nov 2022, 09:32 Fascinating. How do they know for sure that those ruins were monasteries?
Read the sign, I suppose.
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Oh, I see.
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Source: Crux
Link: cruxnow DOT com/vatican/2023/09/list-documents-jews-saved-by-church-during-nazi-occupation-of-rome
List documents Jews saved by church during Nazi occupation of Rome

〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰

ROME — Though the role of church-run institutions in sheltering Jews during the Nazi occupation of Rome was already well know, the discovery of a list of all those who took refuge previously believed to be lost has added new historical detail.

The list, found in the archives of the Jesuit-run Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, indicates that some 4,300 persons were sheltered between September 1943 and June 1944, when Rome was liberated by Allied forces.

Of that number, 3,600 persons are identified by name on the list, and of those, at least 3,200 were Jews, researchers say, a finding confirmed by comparing the list with archives maintained by the Jewish community of Rome.

In all, at least 100 women’s religious orders and 55 men’s communities, as well as parishes and other Catholic institutions, provided places of refuge during the German occupation.

During the period of Nazi occupation of Rome, at least 2,000 Jews, including hundreds of children and adolescents, were killed out of a total community estimated at the time between 10,000 and 15,000 people. Most died in the Auschwitz–Birkenau camp after a roundup of Roman Jews in mid-October 1943.

News of the discovery of the list of those rescued was presented Thursday during a conference at the Holocaust Museum of Rome titled, “Saved: The Jews Hidden in Religious Institutes of Rome (1943–44.)” Organizers said the list has not yet been made public “for reasons of privacy,” presumably to provide an opportunity to inform family members and descendants of the people identified.

“We know where they were hidden and, in some circumstances, their places of residence before the persecution,” said a joint statement from the Pontifical Biblical Institute, the Jewish Community of Rome and Yad Vashem.

[…]

According to the researchers involved in the project, the list was complied by an Italian Jesuit named Father Gozzolino Birolo between June 1944 and the spring of 1945. Birolo, who died of cancer in June 1945, had been in charge of finances for the Pontifical Biblical Institute under its rector at the time, German Father Augustin Bea, who would go on to become a cardinal and a pioneer in Jewish–Catholic relations after the war.

Among the church facilities in Rome where jews found refuge, according to the documentation, were the Parish of the Transfiguration, the Parish of Divine Providence, the Major Roman Seminary, the Church of San Carlo al Corso, the Parish of Santa Maria in Trastevere, the Church of Santa Maria delle Fornaci.

Researchers said that a list of religious institutes in Rome that harbored Jews, along with the numbers in each case, had already been published by an Italian historian named Renzo De Felice in 1961. However, the source material upon which his list was based had been considered lost until the recent discovery.

While there long has been a debate over the alleged “silence” of Pope Pius XII regarding the Holocaust, including the deportation of Roman Jews, most observers believe that the shelter afforded Jews by religious institutes in Rome would not have occurred without his explicit encouragement.

While the list of persons saved is overwhelmingly composed of Jews, researchers say there are also a number of individuals who were sought by the Nazis for other reasons, including Italian partisans engaged in resistance to the occupation.


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List documents Jews saved by church during Nazi occupation of Rome

Um, wut?
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Post by Del »

Biff wrote: 08 Sep 2023, 18:24 List documents Jews saved by church during Nazi occupation of Rome

Um, wut?
Do you not know the history?

Mussolini's regime kinda imploded. Being allies with Hitler, Nazi military took over control of Italy. And they started rounding up Italian Jews.

Pope Pius XII had tried to speak out publicly against Hitler's treatment of Jews in Germany. Hitler responded with a violent crackdown against German Catholics. So the Pope resorted to quietly organizing Catholics in Nazi-controlled regions to hide and rescue Jews from the Holocaust.

When Nazis took over Rome, Jews fled into the Vatican. They were smuggled out of Italy or hidden in monasteries and convents. Jewish leaders in Israel have honored Pope Pius XII for his heroic work to save Jews, counting him "Righteous Among the Nations."

Discovering a list of names (hidden from the Nazis, discovered 80 years later) is a huge find. There are still refugee families looking for their lost members.

Imagine believing all these decades that your loved ones were killed by Nazis.... and learning now that they were rescued by Italian Catholics, perhaps with clues leading to where they settled. Lost branches of family will be reunited because of this.
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Post by sweetandsour »

Biff wrote: 08 Sep 2023, 18:24 List documents Jews saved by church during Nazi occupation of Rome

Um, wut?
I had to read the headline a couple of times, before realizing that "documents" is a verb in the sentence, not a plural noun.
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Post by Del »

sweetandsour wrote: 08 Sep 2023, 21:47
Biff wrote: 08 Sep 2023, 18:24 List documents Jews saved by church during Nazi occupation of Rome

Um, wut?
I had to read the headline a couple of times, before realizing that "documents" is a verb in the sentence, not a plural noun.
oh. :oops:
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Post by Biff »

Here I stand. I can do no other. :flags-wavegreatbritain: :flags-canada:
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