ZACHARY WONG

CHURCH OF THE APOSTLES. In 2019, archaeologists at el-Araj unearthed a Byzantine church—replete with multicolored geometric mosaics covering the southern aisle and the central nave, as well as the base of a pillar that would have separated the aisle from the nave. The church functioned from the fifth-eighth centuries C.E. This suggests that people identified el-Araj as Bethsaida, the hometown of the apostles Peter, Andrew, and Philip, during the Byzantine period.