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BOAZ ZISSU, BAR-ILAN UNIVERSITY

CHRISTIAN CAVES. The rooms deeper in the cave complex show clear signs of the effort to transform the space into a Christian chapel. Room IV was separated from a smaller adjacent space by a low chancel screen and two pillars, of which only one remains; the space created by the partition, labeled Room V, has a small altar centered along the far wall. In the darkness beyond, through an archway bearing inscriptions honoring St. Salome, was a final room (Room VI) with an elongated niche that probably held the chapel’s primary reliquary (which itself may have held the bones of St. Salome), with another smaller votive niche shown here.