Beliaev L.A.

Key words: Byzantine, Palestine, Jericho, Russian plots, archaeology, numismatics, mosaics, museum construction.
The article presents the results of the excavations carried out by Joint Expedition of the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences with the participation of the Department of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (PNA) at the land plot of Russian Federation at Tell Hassan (central part of Jericho). The excavation in Jericho is the first fieldwork of the Russian archaeologists in Palestine for the past century. And this is an evident historical injestice, because it was the Russian science that broke the way here in the 1880-s. During three months of work, the Expedition cleared out the history of the land lot and amassed a collection of ancient items of museum importance (over 300). The exploitation of the land lot goes back to Roman times (the most ancient coins found are dated 1st c. BC). In the Byzantine epoch (late 5th–early 7th c. AD) the whole land lot was occupied by the buildings. They are built of big blocks of cut stone on bouldery foundations; capitals and bases are extremely schematic; the columns are hewn from local limestone. However, the interiors are comfortable and richly decorated. All of them are equipped by reservoirs where water canals go to, floors are carpeted by mosaic of small white or colored stone cubes. The most important find is a big (3.6 ×3.6 m) polychrome mosaic of 150 thousand cubes. Its composition is formed by complex braided circles and vegetation motives that are associated in the religious symbolic with wishes of well-being. Many finds point to the Christian character of the complex: bronze thurible with chains and cross; ceremonial bronze lamp; ceramic lamps with the Greek inscriptions. These things and mosaic relate to the period from late 5th to the first half lf 7th c. The second polychrome mosaic is found in premises hardly touched by excavations.