April 2, 2018
On Saturday, 14 April, Dr. Mark Schuler will deliver a lecture on “The End of Christianity at Hippos: the Sixth to the Eighth Centuries” at Macalestar College in St. Paul as part of a conference on Byzantium and Early Islam: Exploring the Late Antique Transition. Other speakers at the conference include Andy Overman, Gideon Avni, Walid Atrash, Stephen Shoemaker, Alan Walmsley, Gaby Mazor, and Vanessa Rousseau.
January 20, 2018
What is a pagan amulet against indigestion doing in a Byzantine church at Hippos? Did the processions of debauchery and drinking honoring the god of wine Dionysus continue during the Christian period? And did the goddess of good fortune Tyche still protect Hippos centuries after the disappearance of belief in the Greco-Roman gods? A new exhibition at the University of Haifa’s Hecht Museum summarizes 18 years of exploration in the ancient city of Hippos
December 2, 2017
In my lecture, I will overview the various Christian churches at Sussita and posit a description of the community in the sixth century CE.
June 14, 2017
We are pleased to announce that we have fully updated the photo gallery collection in the Galleries link on our main menu. You can now see photos from each day of the dig for the last fifteen years. Also there are lots of ceramics, metals, coins, plasters, etc. These raw records are critical as we get started on the final report.
May 8, 2018
Upcoming Lecture: Christian Identity from the ground up: a case study of Hippos Palaistinēs
by Mark Schuler (administrator) • Research Phase
Dr. Schuler will deliver a plenary lecture at the upcoming meeting of the Society of LCMS Theological Professors at Concordia Wisconsin on 23 May.
Prospectus: This paper explores the formation of Christian identity at the site as has been revealed in recent excavations. The paper highlights the role of church construction in supplanting paganism, the reverence of the sacred dead within the city in contrast to pagan and Jewish practices, the novel practice of religious community in an urban context, and the import of baptism and the eucharist in the move toward Chalcedonian Christianity. Evidence of residual pagan practices in Christian contexts illustrates the fluid and incomplete nature of that identity formation.