Finding Jesus: Byzantine Paintings at Shivta

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Traces of wall paintings in the Byzantine-period village of Shivta in the Negev have been recently identified as images of Jesus. They portray Jesus’s baptism, painted in the North Church’s baptistery, and the Transfiguration, in the South Church. These rare compositions elucidate the development of early Christian iconography and cultural life in this remote region.

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Endnotes

1. For a summary of archaeological work at Shivta, see Yotam Tepper et al., “Probing the Byzantine/Early Islamic Transition in the Negev: The Renewed Shivta Excavations, 2015–2016,” Tel Aviv 45 (2018), pp. 120–152.

2. Ravit Linn, Yotam Tepper, and Guy Bar-Oz, “Visible Induced Luminescence Reveals Invisible Rays Shining from Christ in the Early Christian Wall Painting of the Transfiguration in Shivta,” PLOS ONE 12.9 (2017), doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185149.

3. See Emma Maayan-Fanar et al., “Christ’s Face Revealed in Shivta: An Early Byzantine Wall Painting in the Desert of the Holy Land,” Antiquity 92.364 (2018), doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2018.150.

4. Ravit Linn, Emma Maayan-Fanar, and Yotam Tepper, “In Situ Implementation of Imaging Techniques Reveals Key Motifs in the Early Byzantine Wall Painting of Christ’s Baptism at Shivta, Israel,” Near Eastern Archaeology 86.1 (2023), pp. 58–63.