The church of the Annunciation

Abstract

The surviving structure of the church was described in 1976 but since various of its features are referred to in describing the earlier phases of the site they are summarized here. The church consisted of a main room, or nave, with an apse at the east end. Its roof was carried on arches, which sprang from piers which stood in front of the walls and are here numbered in two series, north and south, starting at the west end. These divided the church into five bays, and the spaces between the piers in all but the central bay to the south, where there was a door, were occupied by stone benches. Since time was not available to excavate the interior completely and as it seemed advisable to leave an undisturbed section for any future excavation designed to check or amplify the results of the present work, it was decided to concentrate on exploring the northern half of the church, so that what was discovered there could be related more immediately to information from the site of the Visitation church; this excavated area (trench 1) was extended to the south wall, in a strip l.50m wide.