vement. The excavations being followed
up have laid bare a church with some of the surrounding buildings. The
amount of _debris_ which had accumulated above the floor of these
buildings was 10 to 20 feet in depth. To remove this mass of earth has
required much time and labor, and the work is not yet completed. The
piece of ground in question has about 60 yards of frontage on the main
road, and extends, so far as the excavations go, about the same distance
back from the road, that is, to the east.

The church itself is situated on the south side of this plot, and is
very near the street. The ground in front of the church is paved with
fine slabs of stone. The steps by which the church was entered were 5
feet wide, but the doorway itself was somewhat wider. From the entrance
to the altar step, or platform, the distance is 55 feet, and from that
point to the back of the apse 15 feet 6 inches; the width of the apse is
16 feet 6 inches. The width of the church is 24 feet 6 inches. Nine feet
in front of the altar step a wall has been thrown across the church in a
manner similar to that in the church of the Nativity at Bethlehem. This
wall, also those of the church, of which several courses remain, and the
interior of the apse, show that the building was originally painted, and
some of the figures and designs can still be traced. At the southeast
corner of the church, leading from the apse, there is a narrow but well
built passageway to the buildings in the rear. The character of these
buildings is not very evident; certainly they did not stand on a line
with the church, but at an angle of 25 deg. with that line. Between the
church and what appears now to have been the main building in the rear,
there was a passage not over 3 feet wide. The main building in the rear
of the church is 47 feet 6 inches long, but to this must be added 20
feet more of a special room, which seems to have belonged to it, and
which had a beautiful mosaic pavement. Thus the extreme length from the
entrance of the church to the (present) east side of this mosaic floor
is 140 feet.

On the west side of this mosaic floor, where it joins the wall of the
main building, there is a threshold of a single stone, 9 feet 6 inches
long, with a step 6 feet 9 inches in the clear. This is considerably
wider, it will be seen, than the steps, and even the entrance of the
church. Several patches of mosaic pavement have been found, but in one
place two or three square y