A new Armenian inscription from a Byzantine monastery on Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem

The remains of a large fifth-eighth-century CE monastery and pilgrim hostel, excavated on the eastern slope of Mt. Scopus, include agricultural facilities, stables, halls, a sophisticated water system, a large bathhouse and a church complex. The latter consists of church and a probable baptistery, both faced by an entry hall that covered an underground water cistern. Near the mouth of a cistern, an Armenian mosaic inscription was discovered. It is composed of the name Grigor (i.e., Gregory), two mostly destroyed letters, and what is apparently the nomen sacrum 'Christ'. The cross at the beginning and the nomen sacrum at the end are in red; the other letters are black. On the basis of coins uncovered below the mosaic, we date the inscription to the sixth century. It constitutes a significant addition to the information about Armenian presence on the ridge of Mt. Scopus and the Mount of Olives and to the corpus of early Armenian mosaic inscriptions from Jerusalem.