A team of archaeologists’ uncovered evidence this month that may be the “smoking gun” con-firming the location of the house of St. Peter.
While excavating a fifth-sixth century Byzantine basilica at the el Araj archaeological site located on the shores of the Sea of Galilee in Israel, the team discovered a large Greek mosaic that seems to bolster the theory that the church was built over the home of Ss. Peter and Andrew.
Steven Notley, the academic director at the excavation of what is being called “The Church of the Apostles,” is a professor of the New Testament and Christian Origins at Nyack University. He told in a phone interview that the basilica’s mosaic is the “most definitive archaeological connection [we have] with [St.] Peter.”
The mosaic is inscribed with a petition that asks for the inter-cession of St. Peter, who is referred to as “the chief and commander of the heavenly apostles.”
Byzantine Christian writers commonly referred to the Apostle Peter by this title.
The inscription also mentions a donor named Constantine, “a servant of Christ,” and is framed in a round medallion with two strands of black tesserae, or glass mosaic pieces, that are part of a larger mosaic on the floor of the basilica’s sacristy.
The mosaic is inscribed with a petition that asks for the inter-cession of St. Peter, who is referred to as “the chief and commander of the heavenly apostles.” Steven Notley.