Mosaics found inside Shiloh churchArchaeologists digging near the town of Shiloh have uncovered an ancient church built on a site where the Ark of the Covenant may have been kept over three thousand years ago.

The site, emerging from the soil in a few acres in the hills of the Israeli occupied West Bank, is richly decorated with brightly coloured mosaics and inscriptions referring to Jesus Christ.

According to the team, led by Yitzhak Magen and Yevgeny Aharonovitch, the church dates to the late 4th century, making it one of Christianity's first formal places of worship.

"I can't say for sure at the moment that it's the very first church," said Mr Aharonovitch, 38, as he oversaw a team carrying out the final excavations before winter yesterday. "But it's certainly one of the first." He said the site contained an extremely unusual inscription which referred to itself, Shiloh, by name.

"That is very rare and shows early Christians treated this as an ancient, holy place," said Mr Aharonovitch. According to the Old Testament, the Ark of the Covenant, which contained the two tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments, was kept by the Israelites at Shiloh for several hundred years.

The Ark was kept for many years in the Tabernacle at Shiloh before Solomon's Temple was built about 1000 BC, at which time the Ark was placed in the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem.  When the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the temple in 587 BC, the Ark was lost.

Jewish settlers in the area are convinced that, if the archaeologists excavate beneath the church, they will unearth artifacts from the time of the Tabernacle.  The archaeologists are interested in digging further but, before that can happen, they may have to take the mosaics to a museum.

UPDATE (8 Dec.): Many more photos are posted here.