Early church found in Israel
By Harry de Quetteville
LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH
December 4, 2006

SHILOH, West Bank -- Archaeologists claim to have uncovered one of the world's first churches, built on a site thought once to have housed the Ark of the Covenant.

The site, emerging from the soil in the hills of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, is richly decorated with brightly colored mosaics and inscriptions referring to Jesus Christ.

The church dates to the late 4th century, making it one of Christianity's first formal places of worship, said the team, led by Yitzhak Magen and Yevgeny Aharonovitch.

"I can't say for sure at the moment that it's the very first church, but it's certainly one of the first," Mr. Aharonovitch said yesterday as he supervised a team carrying out the final excavations before winter. He said the site contained an extremely unusual inscription that referred to itself, Shiloh, by name.

"That is very rare and shows early Christians treated this as an ancient, holy place," said Mr. Aharonovitch, 38. According to the Old Testament, the Ark of the Covenant, which contained the two tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments, was kept by the Israelites at Shiloh for several hundred years. the rest