Abstract/Summary

This book presents a new social and economic interpretation of Roman-period and Byzantine Nazareth and its hinterland as a whole, showing the transformation of a Roman-period Jewish village into a major Byzantine Christian pilgrimage centre. Although Nazareth is one of the most famous places in the world, this is the first book on Roman-period and Byzantine Nazareth by a professional archaeologist, the only book to consider the archaeology of Nazareth in the context of its adjacent landscape, and the first to use contemporary archaeological methods and theory to explore Nazareth’s archaeology. The analysis and conclusions have implications for the wider archaeology of the Roman and Byzantine worlds and for archaeological theory, and demonstrate the importance of Nazareth to world archaeology.