Nancy Benovitz E-mail: nancy.benovitz@mail.huji.ac.il M.A. thesis topic: Evidence for the "Justinianic Plague" in Dated Greek Epitaphs of the Byzantine Period from the Provinces of Palaestina and Arabia and southern Phoenice. Advisor: Dr. Leah Di Segni

Abstract:

Students of the archaeology of Israel in the Byzantine period are frequently taught that one of the factors contributing to the decline of Roman-Byzantine culture in this region was "the plague," a pandemic of vast geographical proportions that broke out in the Egyptian port of Pelusium in 541 CE and recurred in successive waves until the mid-eighth century. But what do we really know about this pandemic and its impact in this part of the world? The spotty and tendentious nature of the literary sources and the paucity and elusiveness of the archaeological evidence make it difficult to understand the Justinianic Plague and assess its consequences.

This study attempts to shed light on the topic by reviewing the literary sources on the Justinianic Plague related to this region and presenting some of the ways in which archaeology corroborates these sources. The heart of the project is a descriptive statistical analysis of the corpus of dated Greek epitaphs of the fourth through the seventh century CE from the Byzantine provinces of Palaestina Prima, Palaestina Secunda, and Palaestina Tertia or Salutaris, Arabia, and southern Phoenice. The data shows a clear peak in the number of dated epitaphs at the time of the plague's initial appearance, suggesting that this outbreak was an important turning point in the history of the region and that it contributed significantly to the processes that led to the dissolution of local Roman-Byzantine culture.