1,800-year-old altar to pagan god Pan hidden in a Byzantine church

By Laura Geggel - Associate Editor 7 hours ago



Whoever inscribed this altar went outside the rectangular box and shrank the letters, too.
(Image: © Banias excavations team;University of Haifa; Israel Nature and Parks Authority; Photo by Ofer Shinar)

Archaeologists in Israel have discovered an ancient altar honoring the Greek god Pan, the deity of flocks and shepherds, but whoever inscribed it botched the job.

The inscriber basically ran out of room — etching letters outside the altar's rectangular frame and also shrinking letters toward the end, to make them fit.

"The inscriber was no pro," Avner Ecker, project co-director and archaeologist at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, told Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper.

Archaeologists found the altar lying sideways on the ground while excavating a Byzantine church. The volcanic basalt altar dates to the second or third century, but it was repurposed as a support brick in the fifth-century church, largely built out of limestone and located in what is now the Banias Nature Reserve in northern Israel. Whoever built the church apparently didn't want worshippers seeing a dedication to the god Pan, so the altar was turned around, possibly to debase and humiliate any pagans who still practiced "old" polytheistic beliefs, Adi Erlich, project co-director and archaeologist at the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at Haifa University, said in a statement.

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