page_title: Monastery of Martyrius
section_title: 19th-century description
hierarchical_section_title: Monastery of Martyrius / 19th-century description
caption_attribution_description: עברית: לוח של שולחן שיש, מנזר מרטריוס
context_page_description: The Monastery of Martyrius, whose ruins have been excavated in the centre of the Israeli West Bank settlement and city of Ma'ale Adumim, was one of the most important centres of monastic life in the Judean Desert during the Byzantine period. It was active between the second half of the 5th and the mid-7th century.
context_section_description: The Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine visited and measured up Khurbet el Murussus in 1874. They described it as: 
  A ruined monastery with a chapel, the foundations only remaining. The building has a total measure of 270 feet east and west on a line 86° west. The width north and south is about 90 feet. The chapel to the east has three apses. The nave 18 feet 3 inches diameter, the aisles 15 feet 6 inches. The length inside from the back of the apse is 64 feet. The northern aisle is almost entirely destroyed. Remains of tesselated pavement occur on the floor of the southern aisle. The chapel has an atrium on the west and narrow cloisters on the north and south. In the latter is a well. A tower of later date (Shunet Murussus) has been built in the south-west corner of the building, and to the south of this are remains of the cobble-pavement (whence the place is named), in a courtyard the eastern wall of which is visible. The tesselated pavement of the chapel has a simple pattern, red, white, blue and black. West of the building there is a cistern mouth with an octagonal cover, 6 feet 4 inches diameter, or 2 feet side. The Maltese cross is cut on each side of this octagon. The cover may perhaps have been originally a font removed from its proper place. The cistern beneath is of considerable extent, and has to the north another entrance, with steps leading down. A water-channel runs some 10 yards south-west to a small reservoir, about 10 feet square, which was fed from the larger cistern.
  One of the stones in the building was measured and found to be 3 feet 1 inch long, 1 foot 5 inches high, 2 feet 2 inches thick. The stones in the tower are older material used up; one had a cross, in a lozenge and square, cut on it. The ruin stands on a hill 500 feet above the valleys, and there are traces of a considerable site and other cisterns of good size. Between the ruin and Khurbet ed Dikki there is a rude erection which looks almost like a dolmen. Two slabs rest on others, and below there is a small semicircular platform of unhewn stones, and lower down a small natural cave."
caption: Marble table from the monastery, on display at the Museum of the Good Samaritan
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