Jerusalem, February 17, 2025
A recent archaeological discovery near Jerusalem has challenged the established scholarly understanding of ascetic practices in the Byzantine era.
In a burial typically associated with male ascetics, researchers found remains of a woman wearing chains, prompting a reconsideration of women’s role in extreme religious traditions of the 5th century. The remains were identified by examining proteins in the tooth enamel, reports Sedmitza.
At the same time, the discovery should be of no surprise to Orthodox Christians familiar with the Church’s ascetic life and practices.
The discovery, made at the Khirbat el-Masani excavation site, just a few miles from Jerusalem’s Old City, by a team from the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Israel Antiquities Authority, was recently revealed in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.
Ruins of a Byzantine monastery dated to 350–650 have been unearthed at the site. Archaeologists found on the remains in question large metal rings on the neck, arms, and legs, with a diameter of about 4 inches, weighing several dozen pounds.
Historical records show female ascetics emerged in 4th-century Roman society, with prominent examples like the noble-born St. Melania the Elder and her granddaughter St. Melania of Rome choosing lives of extreme religious devotion.
While written sources document this phenomenon, the newly discovered burial provides the first physical evidence of women using metal chains for religious mortification—a practice that scholars previously thought exclusive to male ascetics in Byzantine times.
This archaeological find indicates that women participated in the most extreme forms of ascetic practice, reshaping the academic understanding of female religious life in the period.
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