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A12 SCIENCE
Saturday 30 January 2021
By Sea of Galilee, archaeologists find ruins of early mosque

By ILAN BEN ZION ketplace later used as a
Associated Press mosque.
TIBERIAS, Israel (AP) — Ar- But Cytryn-Silverman’s ex-
chaeologists in Israel say cavations delved deeper
they have discovered beneath the floor. Coins
the remnants of an early and ceramics nestled
mosque — believed to among at the base of the
date to the earliest de- crudely crafted founda-
cades of Islam — during an tions helped date them to
excavation in the northern around 660-680 AD, bare-
city of Tiberias. ly a generation after the
This mosque’s foundations, city’s capture. The build-
excavated just south of the ing’s dimensions, pillared
Sea of Galilee by the He- floor-plan, and qiblah, or
brew University of Jerusa- prayer niche, closely paral-
lem, point to its construction leled other mosques from
roughly a generation after the period.
the death of the Prophet Avni said that for a long
Mohammad, making it one time, academics weren’t
of the earliest Muslim hous- sure what happened to cit-
es of worship to be studied ies in the Levant and Mes-
by archaeologists. opotamia conquered by
“We know about many the Muslims in the early 7th
early mosques that were century.
founded right in the begin- “Earlier opinions said that
ning of the Islamic period,” This 2013 aerial photo shows the site of the Al-Juma (Friday) Mosque in Tiberias, northern there was a process of con-
said Katia Cytryn-Silverman, Israel. quest, destruction and dev-
a specialist in Islamic ar- Associated Press astation,” he said. Today,
chaeology at Hebrew Uni- he said, archaeologists un-
versity who heads the dig. When the mosque was built along the lake shore. But decades the ancient city derstand that there was a
Other mosques dating from around 670 AD, Tiberias had until recently, little was has started yielding other “fairly gradual process, and
around the same time, such been a Muslim-ruled city known about the city’s ear- monumental buildings from in Tiberias you see that.”
as the Prophet’s Mosque in for a few decades. Named ly Muslim past. its past, including a sizeable The first mosque built in
Medina, the Great Mosque after Rome’s second em- Gideon Avni, chief ar- Roman theater overlooking the newly conquered city
of Damascus, and Jerusa- peror around 20 AD, the chaeologist with the Israel the water and a Byzantine stood cheek by jowl with
lem’s Al-Aqsa mosque, are city was a major center of Antiquities Authority, who church. the local synagogues and
still in use today and can- Jewish life and scholarship was not involved in the ex- Since early last year, the the Byzantine church that
not be tampered with by for nearly five centuries. Be- cavation, said the discov- coronavirus pandemic dominated the skyline.
archaeologists. fore its conquest by Muslim ery helps resolve a schol- halted excavations and This earliest phase of the
Cytryn-Silverman said armies in 635, the Byzantine arly debate about when lush Galilean grasses, herbs mosque was “more hum-
that excavating the Tibe- city was home to one of a mosques began standard- and weeds have grown ble” than a larger, grander
rian mosque allows a rare constellation of Christian izing their design, facing to- over the ruins. Hebrew Uni- structure that replaced it
chance to study the archi- holy sites dotting the Sea of ward Mecca. versity and its partners, the half a century later, Cytryn-
tecture of Muslim prayer Galilee’s shoreline. “In the archaeological German Protestant Institute Silverman said.
houses in their infancy and Under Muslim rule, Tibe- finds, it was very rare to find of Archaeology, plan to re- “At least until the monu-
indicates a tolerance for rias became a provincial early mosques,” he said. start the dig in February. mental mosque was erect-
other faiths by early Islamic capital in the early Islamic Archaeological digs Initial excavations of the ed in the 8th century, the
leaders. She announced empire and grew in promi- around Tiberias have pro- site in the 1950s led scholars church continued being
the findings this month in a nence. Early caliphs built ceeded in fits and starts for to believe that the build- the main building in Tibe-
virtual conference. palaces on its outskirts the past century. In recent ing was a Byzantine mar- rias,” she added.q

Tropical cyclones are nearing land more, except in Atlantic

BY SETH BORENSTEIN additional two cyclones closer to land, researchers
AP Science Writer have come within 124 miles still haven’t seen a signifi-
Tropical cyclones across (200 kilometers) of land, the cant increase in landfalls,
the globe, except Atlan- study said which “is still a puzzle,” said
tic hurricanes, are moving Researchers don’t quite study lead author Shuai
closer to land in recent de- know why this is happen- Wang, a cyclone scientist
cades, a new study found. ing, but it adds to other at Imperial College in Lon-
Also called typhoons, tropi- ominous trends in cyclone don. “It’s not only the land-
cal cyclones generally activity. Past studies have fall that causes damage.
have been moving west- found that the most intense When the cyclone is close
ward by about 18 miles storms are getting stron- enough to land it can also
per decade (30 kilometers) ger and storms in general cause damage like Hurri-
since 1982, putting them are getting wetter, shifting cane Sandy and Dorian a
closer to land and making poleward, moving slower few years ago,” Wang said,

them more dangerous, a and are keeping their pow- who also mentioned 2019’s
In this Aug. 9, 2019 satellite image made available by NASA,
Typhoon Lekima, left, skirts north of Taiwan and towards eastern study in Thursday’s journal er longer after hitting land. Typhoon Lekima, one of
China. Science said. Each de- But while the new study the costliest in Chinese his-
Associated Press cade since the 1980s, an found storms are getting tory. q