Ruins of Al-Aqiser churchThe ruins of a 1500-year-old Christian church were discovered in the Iraqi desert south-west of Baghdad in the 1970s.  Now a government expert in antiquities is trying to raise funds to preserve and restore the Al-Aqiser church.

"It is a place of worship, a church, and without doubt, the oldest church of the East," said Hussein Yasser, the head of the antiquities department of the province of Karbala.

"According to our research, it was build 120 years before the emergence of Islam in the region," Yasser said as he took an AFP correspondent on a tour of the site.

Islam emerged in the Arabian peninsula in 622, or, by Yasser's account, 15 years after Al-Aqiser was built in a region teeming with Christian tribes.

In time, Karbala overshadowed it and became a key Muslim Shiite pilgrimage destination, while across the region Christian communities began to recede.

Deserted by its worshippers, Al-Aqiser slowly sank into the sands and would have been totally forgotten had it not been for a team of Iraqi archeologists who stumbled on its ruins in the 1970s.

The church was built facing Jerusalem with foundations measuring 75 metres long by 15 metres wide.

An archway with inscriptions in Syriac has already been excavated.  Mr Yasser is convinced that an ancient city lies buried beneath the sands.

Previous related post: Iraq’s chief archaeologist quits, flees religious persecution