Pilgrims, monks, and digs

Abstract This chapter discusses written sources and archaeological evidence for first-century Nazareth. The lack of written evidence for Nazareth at any time in the first millennium ad is examined and the archaeology of Jewish rock-cut tombs and of the Church of the Annunciation site re-evaluated. Twenty-first-century fieldwork (both excavations and surveys) other than by the Nazareth Archaeological Project—the principal subject of this book—is outlined. The resulting evidence is shown to confirm the existence of a first-century farming community at Nazareth and to enable its identification with the place called Nazareth in the Gospels.