Israel

In antiquity this territory was Roman Judaea and then, after the reorganisations of the fourth century, the provinces of Palaestina Prima, Secunda and Tertia. Money ran on the imperial coinage: the silver denarius, badly debased by the third century, then Diocletian’s reformed system, and from Constantine onwards the gold solidus, struck at seventy-two to the Roman pound and holding its weight and purity for some seven hundred years, which makes any sum in solidi or nomismata convertible to fine gold without guesswork. Almost no account books survive, but two other kinds of record are unusually rich here. Hundreds of mosaic pavements in churches and synagogues carry dedicatory inscriptions naming the people who paid and, in a useful minority of cases, exactly how much each of them gave; and the dry Negev has preserved papyrus archives, above all from Nessana, full of receipts, contracts and tax registers. Between them you can read the price of a decorated floor in a village almost nobody has heard of.

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The Deacons and Villagers of Horvat ‘Erav Pay for Their Church’s Mosaic Pavement 445

In the month of Loos in the year 570 of the era of Tyre, which is August or September of 445, the mosaic paving of the church at Horvat ‘Erav in the Upper Galilee was finished, and the floor itself records who paid for it. Under Bishop Irenaeus, the country bishops Thomas and Achillios and the village visitor Ioannios, eleven subscriptions are set out by name: the deacons Symeon, Apson, Dipheos and Gaion each gave a whole gold nomisma, the deacons Barochis and Macedonius half a one each, Megistianos and Kaioumos a nomisma apiece, Zenodoros son of Zenodoros half and then a purse of another half, and Gaion son of Morseos a quarter. The eleven entries come to eight and a quarter solidi, which is what one village congregation raised to have a decorated floor designed and laid, materials and labour together. The solidus was struck at seventy-two to the Roman pound in near-pure gold and held that standard for centuries, so the sum converts to fine gold directly and needs no estimate.

37.5g

Greek mosaic inscription laid across the nave in front of the entrance of the church at Horvat ‘Erav, Upper Galilee, dated to the month of Loos in the year 570 of the era of Tyre; Inscriptions of Israel/Palestine, Brown University, record Irab 0001, TEI edition with Greek text, editorial apparatus and English translation.