AMMAN, JORDAN -- Archaeologists in Jordan have discovered a cave underneath one of the world's oldest churches and say it may have been an even more ancient site of Christian worship. But outside experts expressed caution about the claim. ¶ Jordanian archaeologist Abdel-Qader al-Housan said this week that the cave, unearthed in the northern Jordanian city of Rihab, shows evidence of early Christian rituals.
The cave is under St. Georgeous Church, which some think was built in 230 A.D., though that date is widely disputed.
Al-Housan, head of the Rihab Center for Archaeological Studies, said there was evidence that the cave was used as a church by 70 followers of Jesus in the first century after his death.
He described a circular worship area with stone seats separated from a living area that had a long tunnel leading to a source of water. He said the early Christians hid there from persecution.
A mosaic inscription on the floor of St. Georgeous Church refers to "the 70 beloved by God and the divine" who founded the worship there.
S. Thomas Parker, a historian at North Carolina State University who led a team that discovered an early church in Aqaba, Jordan, said that while he hadn't seen the Rihab site, any such claim should be taken with a degree of caution.
"An extraordinary claim like this requires extraordinary evidence," he said. "We need to see the artifacts and dating evidence to suggest such an occupation in the first century A.D."
Australian archaeologist Kate da Costa of the University of Sydney, who works in northern Jordan where the cave was found, also said the evidence needs to be confirmed by other archaeologists. She noted, too, that St. Georgeous Church is not universally accepted as the oldest church in the world. Da Costa said a date of 230 for a constructed church "is over 200 years earlier than any other known church."
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