This Painting of Jesus Unveiled a Major Historical Discovery

While studying an ancient Byzantine church, Dr. Emma Maayan-Fanar found what looks to be the face of the Christian Messiah, and many are calling the finding “miraculous.

Along with archaeologists and conservationists from Haifa University, Dr. Maayan-Fanar, Professor Bar-Oz, and Ravit Linn are working tirelessly on a multi-year research project called the Negev Byzantine Bio-Archaeology Research Program.

The Byzantines then built the now-ancient city of Shivta in the desert, where it remained until the Byzantine Empire fell and lost the area to the Ottoman Empire. The city of Shivta, while remote, was an important landmark at the time as it sat directly on the Incense Route, which cultures from the East and West used for trade.

According to research, the predominantly Christian village was destroyed during the rise of Islam. It more or less collapsed and was lost until English explorer Edward Henry Palmer happened upon it in 1871.

Dr. Maayan-Fanar told the Times of Israel that she noticed the face of Jesus staring down at her in what archeologists call the North Church last week, and she truly couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

In fact, it was even difficult to spot as an expert. Dr. Maayan-Fanar told the media. “I was under the apse at the right place at the right time. It’s just so hidden — it’s impossible to see — but the conditions of the light were just right.”

She explained that through well-known formulaic patterns and early Christian art, “Those who know the iconography of early Christianity can recognize such an image even from almost nothing.”

Dr. Maayan-Fanar explained the importance of a possible depiction of Christ’s famous baptism, “Thus far, it is the only in situ baptism-of-Christ scene to date confidently to the pre-iconoclastic Holy Land. Therefore, it can illuminate Byzantine Shivta’s Christian community and Early Christian art across the region.”

Dr. Maayan-Fanar explained, “Christ’s face in this painting is an important discovery in itself. It belongs to the iconographic scheme of a short-haired Christ, which was especially widespread in Egypt and Syro-Palestine, but gone from later Byzantine art. Early sixth-century texts include polemics concerning the authenticity of Christ’s visual appearance, including his hairstyle. Based on iconography, we estimate that this scene was also painted in the sixth century AD.”

As well as the dating of the church, researchers believe that the style of the painting points toward around the 6th century. Although the painting is all but invisible to the naked eye, with visible induced luminescence (VIL), the team was able to map the pigment of the painting and can now understand its composition.

And they hope to learn a great deal more about not only the depiction itself, but more importantly, early life and Christianity during the Byzantine Era, specifically in Shivta.

And one of the most intriguing stories of Shivta is that it was once the site of successful coexistence between many communities of faith.

However, while this theory is widely studied, archeologists don’t believe it to be true. One researcher wrote, “The presence of three large churches indicates that Shivta was a prosperous Christian community. By comparison, the single mosque is significantly smaller than the earlier monuments, pointing to a decline in population at the site.”

The Holy Land, now called Israel, has long been beloved and revered by the Jewish people, Muslims, and Christians from around the world. And as the city of Shivta is technically in the Holy Land, it’s widely important to millions of people that historians understand the religious aspects of it.

However, the public can expect more information in the near future as the team of researchers continues their detailed and delicate work of attempting to understand this incredible city, and its important depiction of a pre-iconoclastic Christ.