The earliest inscription declaring Jesus as God – deemed ‘The greatest discovery since the Dead Sea Scrolls’ – was uncovered beneath the floor of an Israeli prison and is now on display in America.
The 1,800-year-old mosaic, discovered by an inmate of the Megiddo prison, features the ancient Greek writing: ‘The god-loving Akeptous has offered the table to God Jesus Christ as a memorial.‘
The 581-square-foot mosaic decorated the world’s first prayer hall in 230 AD, confirming Christians believed Jesus was the son of God from the very beginning.
The Megiddo Mosaic also included some of the earliest images of fish, which experts believe reference the story in Luke 9:16 when Jesus multiplied two fish to feed a crowd of 5,000 people.
The floor has been hidden under the prison since it was discovered in 2005, but has now been lent to a museum in Washington, DC, until July 2025.
Carlos Campo, CEO of the museum, hailed the mosaic as ‘The greatest discovery since the Dead Sea Scrolls,’ while his colleagues noted it was ‘The most important archaeological discovery for understanding the early Christian church.’
‘We truly are among the first people to ever see this, to experience what almost 2,000 years ago was put together by a man named Brutius, the incredible craftsman who laid the flooring here,’ Campo said at the opening of the exhibition.
The Megiddo Mosaic (pictured) was unearthed during the expansion of a high-security prison in Israel. The mosaic had an inscription at the top (pictured) that said: ‘The god-loving Akeptous has offered the table to God Jesus Christ as a memorial’
The Megiddo Mosaic is currently on display at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC (pictured until July 2025)
Alegre Savariego, curator of the exhibition, said: ‘The mosaic presents groundbreaking physical evidence of the practices and beliefs of early Christians, including the first archaeological instance of the phrase, ‘God Jesus Christ.”
The Megiddo Mosaic was found in the Jezreel Valley where Christians believe the final battle of the Biblical Armageddon in the Book of Revelations will occur.
The excavation, conducted by archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), took four years to recover the 581-square-foot mosaic floor.
The mosaic included the name of the Roman officer who commissioned the tile during the Roman occupation of Judea.
Researchers suggested that could prove Romans coexisted with Christians to some degree, despite the numerous stories of war and slaughter at the time.
An inscription on the mosaic read: ‘Gaianus, a Roman officer, having sought honor, from his own money, has made the mosaic.‘
The team also found a nearby Roman camp, providing more support of the peace between the two groups.
The prayer hall, or church, was likely abandoned and covered up because the Roman Empire’s Sixth Legion was transferred to Transjordan – a region located to the east of the Jordan River.
The mosaic also contained the names of five women, highlighting the important role women played in the church.
Aside from Akeptous, who was mentioned for her donation of a table to the prayer hall, the mosaic’s inscription also says to ‘remember Primilla and Cyriaca and Dorothea, and lastly, Chreste.‘
Bobby Duke, director of the Scholars Initiative at the Museum of the Bible, said: ‘This is arguably one of the most important archaeological discoveries for understanding the early Christian church.’
‘For example, the mosaic underscores the crucial role of women in the early church by the fact that five women are mentioned in it by name,’ he continued. ‘Truly, the mosaic presents a wealth of new data for church historians, like the Dead Sea Scrolls did for Bible scholars.’
The mosaic was discovered while expanding a maximum-security prison located near the ancient city of Megiddo in the Jezreel Valley in 2005.
The mosaic featured some of the earliest images of fish being used to represent Christianity, mirroring the story told in Luke 9:16 when Jesus multiplied two fish to feed a crowd of 5,000 people.
The IAA said there isn’t any information that explains why these women were mentioned, but it is highly unusual because God wasn’t typically asked to remember individuals.
‘While they were clearly important to the community, the inscription does not tell us whether they were patrons of the community (like Akeptous), or martyrs, or honored for some other reason,’ the Museum of the Bible said.
After the major archaeological find, the conservation department of the IAA cleaned and stabilized the mosaic, grouted and re-laid any loose tesserae and filled in the empty spaces with mortar and reburied the mosaic while they carried out their research.
IAA had to separate the floor, placing pieces in 11 crates that were shipped to the US earlier this year for the exhibit titled: ‘The Megiddo Mosaic: Foundations of Faith.‘
‘You couldn’t just lift the whole floor up,’ Duke said. ‘So…they very intricately cut different pieces of the mosaic so that they didn’t destroy any of the artwork. So, not all the pieces were the same size. ‘So, even one of the crates that came into this gallery was about a thousand pounds.’
The Megiddo mosaic will return to Israel after the exhibit concludes and put on a permanent display at the exact site where it was discovered.
The Megiddo inmates will be relocated to another prison upon the mosaic’s return.
In the year leading up to the mosaic’s move to the Museum of the Bible, the IAA received criticism for allowing the a major piece of Christian history to be displayed at the museum.
Since it’s doors opened in 2017, the museum has been forced to return thousands of artifacts including an ancient Mesopotamian tablet and thousands of clay scrolls that were looted from Iraq.
It was also forced to admit that several of the Dead Sea Scroll fragments displayed in its collection were modern forgeries.
‘While some of the founders and actions of the museum are questionable, and the museum clearly has a very ideological agenda, I don’t think a ‘purist’ agenda is very helpful here,’ Prof. Aren Maeir, an archaeologist at Bar-Ilan University told Haaretz.com.
‘As long as everything is done by the letter of the law, I see no problem.’