News

August 08, 2005
Archaeological Expedition In Jordan

expedition.jpgFr. John Abela OFM, Director of the Communications Office of the General Curia of the Order of Friars Minor in Rome, together with Br Lorrie Zerafa OFM, Secretary for Missionary Evangelization of the Maltese Franciscan Province, are currently in Jordan, to take part in the summer session of archaeological digs organized by the Faculty of Biblical Theology and Archaeology of the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum of Jerusalem.

The archaeological team is directed by Fr. Michele Piccirillo OFM, a Franciscan archaeologist of international fame. The team operates from the friary of Mount Nebo, overlooking the Dead Sea, in front of Jericho. The same site marked the beginning of archaeological digs in Jordan way back in the 1930’s by Fr. Sylvester Saller OFM and Fr. Bellarmino Bagatti OFM. Since then the Franciscans have had permission to dig in all Christian places in Jordan. They have found scores of Byzantine basilicas, with beautiful mosaics, worked by the famous Madaba school of mosaics. Fr. Piccirillo has also inaugurated an archaeological park in the nearby town of Madaba, famous for the 6th century mosaic map of the Holy Land found on the floor of the Greek Orthodox church of Saint George. Other areas which the Franciscans have excavated during all these years include Umm-al-Rassas and the Herodian fortress of Macherus, traditional place of the martyrdom of Saint John the Baptist.

Fr. John Abela has been regularly taking part in these archaeological expeditions ever since he was a Franciscan student in Jerusalem, way back in the mid-1970’s.