THE GREAT MOSQUE
The one object of archæological interest in Gaza is the Great Mosque
(Djamia el Kebîr) which rises on the top of the hill in the middle of
the upper city. This mosque is built upon the site of the Basilica,
which the Empress Eudoxia founded, where the Marneion formerly stood,
and was built of ancient materials.
In the twelfth century it was a splendid cathedral dedicated to St.
John Baptist.
The style of architecture is severe, and the ornamentation very plain.
The fine groined roof is entire.
The mosque has three aisles, two of which formed part of the mediæval
church.
Rows of pillars, with Corinthian capitals, divide them one from the
other.
The roof of the central nave is supported by rows of pillars, one above
the other, each pillar of the lower row having a cluster of small
marble pillars round it, for greater strength.
One of the upper pillars on the north-east side of the mosque, of grey
veined marble, bears a bas-relief of a seven-branched candlestick,
with a Greek and Hebrew inscription of three lines inside a wreath. It
belongs, as M. Clermont-Ganneau surmises, to one of the thirty columns
sent by the Empress Eudoxia, and probably comes from the Synagogue of
Cæsarea.[43]
The walls and ceiling are now whitewashed. The church was undoubtedly
decorated with mosaic and pictures.
The three apses have disappeared to make room for a large octagonal
minaret.
On the south side the Moslems have built an additional aisle.
The total length of the building is one hundred and eight and a half
feet, interior measure, the nave being twenty-one and a half feet wide,
and the aisles thirteen feet.
The west doorway is a beautiful mediæval specimen of the Italian Gothic
of the twelfth century churches in Palestine, with delicate clustered
shafts and pillars, deeply undercut lily-leaves adorning the capitals.
Lieut. Kitchener, in 1874, took a photograph of the western door as
well as the interior of the mosque.
The large marble cruciform font has been removed and it now lies in the
courtyard adjoining the mosque, where two other Christian symbols may
be seen, viz. a bishop's staff, and chalice in marble.
Another view of the history of this mosque is given by the
Archimandrite Meletius Metaxakis, in an article on the Madaba Mosaic
Map, in _Nea Sion_, March and April 1907, pp. 262-304, in which he
states that the modern authors of _Guides to Palestine_ hold that the
Eudoxian Church is the modern Great Mosque, Djamia-el-Kebîr, taking
into consideration, it seems, the information that the Eudoxian Church
was to be built in the middle of the city. If, however, we are to
accept that the sketch on the chart shows the Eudoxian Church, then we
ought to treat the Eudoxian Church as identical, not with the mosque,
but rather with the Modern Orthodox Church, built in 1856, during the
Patriarchate of Kyrillus II (1845-1872), and through the expenditure of
the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre. With regard to its position, the
Greek Church is wholly identical with the sketch on the chart.
With regard to the mosque, this is really a three-branched church,
being perhaps one of the churches built by Marcian; the columns of
this church (having no connection with those from Constantinople for
the Eudoxian Church) appear to have been transported from some Hebrew
synagogue, perhaps that of Cæsarea, because there is engraved on one of
them a seven-branched lamp, under which appears the Hebrew and Greek
inscription, "Hananias the son of Jacob."
FOOTNOTE:
[43] The reader is referred for additional information to Chap. XIV,
"Inscriptions," in Meyer's _History of the City of Gaza_.