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The clay of one of the earliest mosque on record , built just a generation after the Prophet Muhammad die , have been found near the Sea of Galilee in Israel , according to archeologist at Hebrew University .
archaeologist feel the foundational remnant of the roughly 1,350 - class - old mosque beneath another mosque that had been work up on top of it in Tiberias , a city in northerly Israel .
A reconstruction of the latest phase of the mosque, which collapsed during a 1068 earthquake.
" We know about many early mosques that were founded mighty in the beginning of the Islamic time period , " excavation drawing card Katia Cytryn - Silverman , a specialist in Islamic archaeology at Hebrew University in Israel , told the Associated Press(AP ) . Other former mosques , including the The Prophet ’s Mosque in Medina , Saudi Arabia , built in A.D. 622 , and the Great Mosque of Damascus in Syria , discharge in A.D. 715 , which were expanded and rebuilt over the years , are still used as place of worship , meaning archaeologist ca n’t do exhaustive excavation there .
" It is not possible to excavate those sites , because they are more often than not located under mosques that are still being used , " Cytryn - Silverman said in a statement from Hebrew University . " Here in Tiberias , we had this noteworthy opportunity to unearth the site and research what place beneath . "
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An aerial view of the mosque site(Image credit: Rafael Langier Gonçalves)
The fresh identify mosque dates to the 2nd one-half of the seventh century , make it the " oldest ever - discovered Friday mosque [ a mosque that view as Friday , or Jumu’ah noon prayer ] , apparently even predating the previously former mosque get in Wāsit , Iraq ( date 703 ) , by several decades , " she said in the instruction .
All that ’s go forth of this century - old mosque are its foundations and artifacts line up in the filling under those structures , such as coin and pottery fragments dating to the 7th century , which avail see the building .
Not a market
Archaeologists have know about this site since the fifties . However , at the time , the mosque ’s remains were misinterpreted as a coveredByzantine - full stop market , Cytryn - Silverman say Live Science . This fault stuck , even when the late archaeologist Yizhar Hirschfeld find , in the later 2000s , " minuscule round understructure , very uncut and asymmetric , which he believed belonged to a construction later than the ' market , ' " she say .
But during recent excavations by Cytryn - Silverman and her team , " I realized the earth architectural plan of that ' covered market ' was very similar to that of the early - 8th century Great Mosque of Damascus , which still stands , " Cytryn - Silverman told Live Science in an e-mail . The team determined that the so - called Byzantine - menstruation bulwark " was actually the foundation for the first row of column of the former stagecoach of the mosque , " which formed a quasi - rectangular building about 72 foot ( 22 meters ) long by 160 feet ( 49 m ) astray , she sound out .
The various excavations there over the long time unearthed break ceiling tile from when the mosque , which was expound over the years after its initial building , collapse during theearthquakeof 1068 . Archaeologists also discovered long bronze chains that once support looking glass mosque lamp . " The lamp , of course , shattered from the collapse , but the many remains of their grip allow us to understand their type , " Cytryn - Silverman secernate Live Science .
An archaeologist examines the foundation of the first mosque right above remains of a monumental Roman building.(Image credit: David Silverman)
Religious tolerance
The Muslims who worshipped at this early mosque were neighbors with Jews and Christians , who also had religious building in the neighborhood , including a monolithic church building nearby that was " on the face of it the biggest church building in the Galilee , " and the cracking Synagogue of Hammat Tiberias to the south , she state .
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this photo shows two sets of round foundations, one of the them from the earlier mosque.(Image credit: David Silverman)
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" So our discovery , which teach that in its first point the mosque was a more unsubdivided and humble structure compared to the houses of prayer nearby , show that the Islamization of the city was gradual , that the newfangled rulers were tolerant , and that the new religious belief adapt to the dynamics of the others , " she allege . In 635 , Muslims conquered Tiberias and its surrounding areas , but the realm was still a comparatively tolerant home , Cytryn - Silverman said .
During the 720s and 730s , the mosque transubstantiate into a big building with a courtyard and at least one underground water tank ( a tank for storing piss ) . In the 800s , a minaret for call Muslims to prayer was likely raise , Cytryn - Silverman mention . The mosque remain in use until the belated 900s , according to a tombstone find near the apsis . Then , the earthquake destroy it in 1068 , and the Crusaders arrived in about 1100 .
An aerial photo of the site looking northeast(Image credit: David Silverman and Yuval Nadel)
Originally published on Live Science .
The apse of a 12th-century Frankish structure at the site, possibly from a chapel.(Image credit: Rafael Langier Gonçalves)
An aerial photo of the site looking southwest(Image credit: David Silverman and Yuval Nadel)
The northwest corner of the eighth century mosque, with a column in secondary use as “cornerstone."(Image credit: David Silverman)
The archaeologists found two lengths of bronze chains, one 24 feet (7.4 meters) long, and the other nearly 20 feet (6 m) long. “The longest one … even allows us to estimate the height of the covered hall of the mosque,” archaeologist Katia Cytryn-Silverman told Live Science.
