GÉRASA. – Greco-Roman city in Transjordan, today Geraf, on the banks of the river Chysorrhoas (Wädi Geraf), whence the name of Antiochia ad Chrysorrhoas attested in epigraphy and numismatics, in honour of its founder Antiochus IV (198 B.C.).
Occupied by Alexander Jannaeus in 78, it was liberated by Pompey in 63 and became part of the Decapolis (Fl. Josephus, Bell. Ind., 80, 86-87, 104). It passed from the province of Syria to the province of Arabia in A.D. 106 and, during the Antonine period (117-80), acquired new splendour through its expansion and the construction of monuments. In memory of Hadrian’s visit, a triumphal arch was erected in 129-30, followed by the temples of Artemis (150) and Zeus (163), the nymphaeum (191), the schools, theatres and baths, which excavation work has in recent times restored to the admiration of scholars. It was one of the most important fortresses in the region and was garrisoned by the III Legio Cyrenaico.
The extent of its territory is unknown; the reading “region of the Gerasenes,” indicated by certain Gospel manuscripts to the east of the Lake of Genesareth (Mc. 5, 1; Lc. 8, 25), certainly refers to another locality of the same name (Gerseseni), not to this city, which lies more than 50 km from the lake.
The arrival of the Persians in 611 and then of the Muslims in 634 marked the end of G. In the 8th century there was still a Greek-Arab population there, but afterwards G. remained deserted. Baldwin II destroyed the fortress of Togtekin, emir of Damascus, in 1121. In 1878 a colony of Circassians settled there and founded the present village of Geraf.
The three-naved church of S. Theodore, from the end of the 5th century, was built on the site of what had previously been a cattle market described in a picturesque mosaic inscription, while another inscription hails St. Theodore as the unconquerable wonder and indistinguishable support of the city and its inhabitants. In the northwestern quarter, another church, dated to 530–31, was built above a synagogue oriented in the opposite direction and adorned with scenes from the Old Testament, among which those of the Flood, the seven-branched candelabrum, cult objects, etc., are best preserved. The church of the diaconia, inaugurated in May 565, above a public building dating from A.D. 150 (v. DIA-
CONIA). The church of the Prophets, Apostles, and Martyrs is cruciform, inspired by that of the Apostles erected by Justinian in Constantinople; the church of Procopius (526). Three churches standing side by side, with entrances onto a single portico, were built between 523 and 529 by the paramonarius Theodore, his wife Georgia, and others, among them the tribune Daghisteus, mentioned by Procopius. From north to south they were dedicated to SS. Cosmas and Damian, to St. John the Baptist, and to St. George; the latter remained in use until the 8th century, if evidentiary value may be attributed to a hoard of Umayyad coins recovered there. The church of St. John the Baptist repeats, on a smaller scale, the cathedral of Bosra, with a round plan and radial niches. The mosaic pavement, more intact in SS. Cosmas and Damian and partially destroyed in the figures at S. George by the iconoclasts, has almost entirely disappeared from the center of St. John the Baptist, except for the fine inscription before the caucelium; it nevertheless preserves exedrae adorned with fantastic Hellenistic-type candelabra and, in the intervening sections, representations of cities identified by their names (to the north, Alexandria and the Pharos; on the left, two other places that Crowfoot identifies with Canopus and the sanctuary of SS. John and Cyrus at Menuthis; to the west, Memphis); all were sites of famous sanctuaries. A similar decoration, with the Pharos, Alexandria, and Memphis, is found, also in G., in the church of SS. Peter and Paul, which, according to the inscription, was also to display precious silver ornaments, in addition to the mosaics whose rich decoration it proudly preserves. The preferred motifs, besides those already noted (and not only in G.: V. ARABIA), of famous holy places, are representations of the months and seasons, portraits of donors in prayer, and reproductions of animals, birds, and fish; the geometric motifs all relate to three schemes based on different combinations of rhombi and polygons, while the borders are often very rich and varied and suggest an exchange of motifs with the contemporary art of carpet-making. A great number of lamps illuminated the interiors of the churches; several were found in S. Theodore. Precious jewels, fabrics, and sacred furnishings were not lacking; among them is remembered a glass chalice bearing, engraved upon it, a large cross with equal arms worked in a lattice pattern, with two stars above and, below, the hypocalictic letters, flanked by two lambs turning their backs to a tree.
Alongside the churches, the remains have also been exhumed of a house for the clergy, a bathing establishment for the faithful adjoining S. Theodore, and even a meeting hall for the cantors. According to the date marked in its mosaic (where the name of a month appears for the first time in Latin form), the last church built in G., at least according to the present state of our knowledge, would date from around 611, when Ginesius was bishop, so that it is named after him; two or three years later the Persian occupation of the city began, lasting until 628, and with it the city’s decline, which ended catastrophically with the severe earthquake of 18 January 746.
The excavations at G., in addition to being the object of the ordinary activity of the Department of Antiquities of Transjordan, of which the Italian architect P. A. Ricci remained a member until his death, were expanded from 1928 to 1934 by a scientific expedition resulting from an agreement between Yale University and the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem. Particular attention to the study of the Christian monuments was devoted by the director of the latter, Prof. J. W. Crowfoot, who was also their first editor. — Vedi tav. VI.