Archaeologists working on a ridge above the Sea of Galilee uncovered a mosaic bearing a blessing addressed to “the elders.” The floor was laid roughly 1,600 years ago in Hippos, a city of the eastern Roman Empire with a substantial Christian community. Its Greek inscription has prompted the excavation team to investigate whether the pavement once stood at the entrance to a building set aside for older people.
Ancient texts describe charitable foundations for the elderly, but archaeologists have identified few buildings that can be securely connected with them. The Hippos mosaic was exposed during excavations in 2023 and 2024, and the team’s interpretation appeared in 2025. Reports calling it the world’s oldest nursing home went further than the published evidence. The team considers the building a possible early institution for older people, but too little survives to prove that interpretation.
The floor preserves three kinds of evidence: the language of its dedication, its Christian decoration and a date supported by material beneath it. It cannot tell us whether the people addressed actually lived there, who funded the building, whether residents received medical attention or how long it remained in use. Its meaning depends on the excavated remains and the broader history of caring for older people in late antiquity.
Hippos was a Roman city that became a Christian bishop’s seat
Hippos, or Sussita, occupied a long ridge east of the Sea of Galilee, about two kilometres from its shore. Both its Greek and Semitic names refer to a “horse.” The settlement grew during the Hellenistic period and became one of the Decapolis cities, an association of Greek-speaking urban centres in the southern Levant. Under Roman rule, public squares, baths, major streets and monumental buildings connected it culturally and commercially with the eastern Mediterranean. The steep approaches also shaped the city’s fortified position.
One main road ran east to west through Hippos towards its civic centre. It was the decumanus maximus. Streets running north to south, called cardines, separated the city into blocks. These terms describe the street plan without indicating what happened inside the buildings. They do, however, place the mosaic beside a busy intersection in a densely built neighbourhood, rather than in an isolated structure beyond the city.
Hippos had a bishop by the fourth and fifth centuries CE, and archaeologists have identified at least seven churches from its Christian history. The Hippos Excavations Project’s account of the city follows its development from a Hellenistic and Roman polis through its Christian urban phase and into the smaller community of the early Islamic period. Houses, churches and buildings serving charitable purposes could share the same streets, so the room’s location offers little help in identifying its function.
An earthquake devastated Hippos in 749 CE. The settlement never regained its former urban scale, and the destruction preserved evidence of its final occupation. The elders’ pavement dates to an earlier phase. Builders had already damaged and covered it centuries before that disaster, so its associated material belongs to a different stage of the city’s history. Reading the earlier floor as a snapshot of 749 would therefore put it in the wrong historical period.
The excavated mosaic lay beside two main streets
Excavators located the pavement within an insula, or city block, approximately 100 metres west of the forum. It lay south of the principal east-west road, beside a colonnaded north-south street designated Cardo I. It can therefore be located more precisely than the description “residential quarter” suggests. The 2025 study by Gregor Staab, Arleta Kowalewska and Michael Eisenberg appeared in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 234, pages 212–216. It records the floor’s measurements, the deposits used in dating it and the editors’ reading of the Greek inscription.
The surviving pavement is a narrow, damaged strip. Its north-south length is 6.2 metres, while the surviving width varies from about 0.5 to 0.8 metres; every edge has been broken. Within that strip is a medallion approximately 74 by 74 centimetres across. Three lines of Greek letters, made from dark tesserae on a pale background, occupy the upper portion of a cross. Tesserae are the small pieces of stone or other material fixed into mortar to form mosaic designs. The letters alpha and omega appear below the cross’s horizontal arm.
Egyptian geese flank the inscription, according to the excavators’ identification. Elsewhere on the surviving strip are other birds, cypress trees, pomegranates, citrus fruit, grapes, a chalice and an amphora. The arrangement was planned, though most of the design has disappeared. Plants, birds and vessels are familiar subjects in late antique religious and domestic mosaics across the eastern Mediterranean; their presence cannot establish who occupied this building.
The mosaic was uncovered over the 2023 and 2024 excavation seasons. Pottery from the fifth and sixth centuries lay in later construction fill above it, along with broken pieces of other mosaics, some retaining letters that cannot be reconstructed into complete texts. Excavators also opened four small test areas below the pavement. Coins and pottery in those underlying deposits indicate a construction date no later than the late fourth or early fifth century. This archaeological sequence, rather than the lettering’s appearance or decorative style alone, provides the basis for the date.
The Israel Antiquities Authority’s excavation report for the 2022–2023 seasons records the expedition’s work, including excavations beside the cardo. The detailed identification of the inscribed medallion came in the specialist publication of 2025. The first report documents the fieldwork; the later study argues that an institution for older people may have occupied the site.
A preliminary report published on 25 May 2026 identifies the mosaic as belonging to the lower of two Byzantine building phases in this block. Above the pavement, in a phase provisionally dated to the sixth or seventh century, excavators uncovered a plastered room containing a shallow basin roughly three metres long and one metre wide. The basin lacked a drain, and the excavators knew of no close parallel that explained its purpose. Because the installation belongs to a later phase, it provides no basis for calling the earlier building a bath or a care facility for the people addressed in the mosaic.
The photograph below depicts a church mosaic from another part of Hippos. It shows the site’s tradition of mosaic floors; it is not the inscription addressed to the elders.
What the Greek inscription actually says
The mosaic’s words are Ἰρήνη τοῖς γέρονσιν, which the excavators translate as “Peace be with the elders.” The word for the people being addressed derives from gerōn, meaning an older person. It differs from presbyteroi, a term that can describe older men but may also designate church elders or presbyters. Interpreting the blessing as a reference to church presbyters would conflate two different Greek words. The greeting addresses older people, although neither their relationship to the building nor the reason for the blessing is spelled out.
One word has an unusual spelling. The mosaic reads γέρονσιν, whereas the more usual grammatical form would be γέρουσιν. The editors discuss changes in pronunciation and the possibility that the craftsman constructed the ending directly from the noun. An inscription made by mosaic workers need not follow every rule of literary Greek. Whatever explains the spelling, the sense of the greeting remains clear.
Staab and his co-authors also consider the way the blessing is phrased. Hebrew greetings using shalom offer one comparison, alongside Christian Greek wishes for peace directed at a particular group. In Ephesians 6:23, peace is offered to “the brothers” in a comparable formula. The phrasing would have been recognisable as a blessing. The words alone do not settle whether the addressees were residents, visitors or another group connected with the building.
The decoration identifies a Christian setting. Alpha and omega, Α and Ω, are the Greek alphabet’s first and last letters; Revelation 22:13 uses them in describing Christ as beginning and end. The cross and these letters were widespread Christian symbols. The excavation authors specifically warn against treating them as a special reference to retirement, dying or a particular form of care. The imagery identifies the building’s Christian setting more securely than its function.
The medallion may have faced people entering a room or courtyard from the street. A wall east of the cardo includes a threshold approximately aligned with the surviving inscription and at a similar level. Someone passing through that threshold may have been able to read the blessing. With so little of the original floor and surrounding rooms remaining, however, the proposed entrance cannot be confirmed by a complete architectural plan.
Why the researchers suggested a home for older people
The 2025 authors suggest the greeting belonged to a place serving older people, possibly a residence or another dedicated establishment. Ancient Greek had a name for a home for the aged: gērokomeion (γηροκομεῖον). Later Roman and Byzantine writings attest institutions of this kind. Should that identification prove correct at Hippos, a foundation dated to the late fourth or early fifth century would be an unusually early archaeological example.
The proposal rests on three observations: the unusual age-specific greeting, its possible position by an entrance, and the existence of Christian charitable institutions in this period. These make a plausible argument, but they do not amount to an explicit statement of function. The word gērokomeion does not appear on the mosaic. No surviving text describes rooms for permanent residents, a donor paying for beds or meals, or attendants caring for the older people mentioned in the inscription.
The damaged building is the main obstacle to a firmer identification. Later construction destroyed the mosaic around all four edges, leaving only a wall and threshold that may belong to its original arrangement. The cross and alpha and omega led the excavators to consider a church, but they found no recognisable church plan in this portion of the block. Without such a plan, a church remains uncertain; its absence does not establish that the space must have been a home for the elderly.
The surviving remains are also consistent with other uses. The building may have been a communal residence, a broader charitable foundation or a place associated with an older group. The greeting might address permanent occupants, occasional visitors or benefactors. Even if excavators could identify cooking facilities, a courtyard, sleeping quarters or water installations, those features would occur in houses, hostels and religious establishments as well. At Hippos the missing rooms and incomplete building sequence prevent a firm choice among these explanations.
News reports sometimes describe the proposed establishment as a “nursing home.” The modern term often implies professional nursing, regulated long-term accommodation and medical supervision. A gērokomeion in late antiquity could instead have offered food, a place to live, religious life and practical help. Confirmation that older people lived at Hippos would not demonstrate around-the-clock nurses, specialised treatment or services equivalent to those of a present-day care facility.
How people cared for the elderly before these institutions
In much of Greek and Roman history, families supplied the first support for relatives growing old. Adult children were expected to meet obligations to their parents, while people with wealth might depend on property, servants and other members of their households. Age could bring severe insecurity to someone without family or resources. Arrangements varied widely with status, money, location and period. Neither universal family care nor universal abandonment describes the experiences of older people across antiquity.
The medical literature acknowledged the particular needs of old age. In Book V of Galen’s On the Preservation of Health, the second-century doctor Galen considered how health might be maintained later in life. The text shows medical interest in ageing. It tells us nothing directly about whether Hippos, or any individual Roman city, supported residents in a dedicated home for older people.
Low average life expectancy at birth does not mean that hardly anyone reached old age. Deaths during infancy and childhood brought the average down. Those who survived into adulthood sometimes lived into their sixties or beyond, although the chances differed greatly with living conditions and social position. Ancient legal, religious, medical and family sources all discuss older adults. Their presence in those records is compatible with the serious economic burden that care could place on households.
Christian charity eventually provided additional forms of assistance alongside household care. Travellers, the poor, sick people and orphans could be supported by different foundations. Terms found in Greek sources include xenodocheion, a guesthouse or hospice; ptōchotropheion, associated with the poor; and nosokomeion, a facility for the sick. A gērokomeion was concerned particularly with older people. Their functions could overlap, and the same institutional name did not imply identical services in every city.
Historian Chris Gilleard’s study of old age in Byzantine society traces support provided through monasteries, church foundations and imperial action. These arrangements supplemented family responsibilities but never reached everyone equally. An elderly villager without resources would have had different prospects from a wealthy donor able to endow an urban house and perhaps retire within it.
What the written evidence tells us about homes for the aged
According to the Hippos paper, the earliest secure references from the Near East to specialised homes for older people belong no earlier than Theodosius II’s reign, from 408 to 450. Other, later traditions credit Helena, Constantine’s mother, with founding such a home at an earlier date. The authors treat that attribution as unreliable. The Helena tradition cannot establish the date of such a foundation without dependable early evidence.
A Jerusalem inscription offers clearer institutional wording. Listed as Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae 859, it describes a home for poor elderly women established by Iohannes and Verine in connection with a church dedicated to Mary. The inscription’s exact date is uncertain, but it expressly names the people whom the foundation served. At Hippos the excavated floor may be earlier, yet its blessing is less explicit about the building’s purpose. The Jerusalem text specifies the foundation’s purpose in a way the Hippos mosaic does not.
Cyril of Scythopolis, writing in the sixth century, credited the fifth-century Empress Eudocia with a programme of religious and charitable building. Eudocia had spent part of her later life in Jerusalem. In the Life of Euthymius, Cyril lists churches, monasteries, almshouses and homes for the aged among her foundations; the 2025 Hippos authors cite his passage and Greek vocabulary. As a Christian hagiographer, Cyril praised exemplary piety and patrons. His praise of benefactors must be read critically, but the text shows that homes for older people were recognised charitable foundations in his time.
The same scholarly study also discusses establishments associated in later accounts with Pulcheria, Emperor Marcian and private residents of Constantinople. Some householders appear to have endowed existing residences or adapted them for communal religious life; a founder without heirs might then spend old age within such a community. Imperial gifts, church management and private benefaction could all sustain institutions. These parallels give no name for a Hippos donor, no resident count and no indication of how the building was financed.
Homes for the aged had become a recognised legal category by Justinian’s sixth-century reign. The Hippos researchers cite the Codex Justinianus and Novellae on charitable gifts, institutional property and restrictions against disposing of endowments. The laws addressed practical problems: buildings required maintenance, residents needed food, and staff had to be supported after a founder died. The legal material establishes how some later Byzantine foundations were protected, but cannot establish that the earlier Hippos building followed the same administrative arrangements.
Byzantine records from still later periods sometimes specify food, clothing, bathing, religious duties and access to medical help in residential institutions. Those later regulations cannot establish how the possible Hippos institution was administered. No rules for residents, list of workers or count of possible occupants has survived there. The number and sex of any people housed in the building remain unknown.
The birds and Christian symbols do not settle the question
Birds occupy much of the surviving decoration. Egyptian geese appear with other birds, trees, fruits and vessels; birds drinking from containers occur widely in the art of late antiquity. Depending on their setting, such images might evoke plenty, religious hope or a cultivated garden. These possible associations require interpretation within the whole design. None functions as a conventional label identifying an old-age institution.
The cross and alpha and omega provide stronger evidence for the commissioner’s Christian identity. Yet the same religious symbols could decorate churches, private homes, funerary spaces and charitable foundations. Their presence cannot distinguish among these types of building. The excavators further caution that alpha and omega should not be read as a symbolic reference specifically to the end of a human life; their familiar Christian meaning was much wider.
The inscription therefore carries the strongest clue to the intended audience. A blessing aimed specifically at older people is distinctive, and its apparent position near a doorway suggests that the addressees had some relationship to the building. The Christian imagery establishes a setting in which charitable work was possible. Destroyed architecture is what prevents the team from going further. The inscription, location and decoration support the proposal in different ways, despite the missing architectural plan.
What would confirm the identification?
Further work could establish whether the threshold and wall were built in the same phase as the inscribed floor. More of the original plan might show how rooms connected and whether communal accommodation was possible. An inscription naming the institution, its administrator, its donor or its intended residents would clarify the question far more directly. Family houses and charitable foundations could have contained similar rooms and facilities.
Traces of repeated occupation, cooking or washing might help reveal what happened in the building, although each activity would fit a family house or hostel as easily as a home for older residents. Confirmation would require clearer evidence of the institution’s purpose, supported by its chronology and layout. Hippos has a suggestive blessing and a reasonably supported date, but most of the relevant architecture has been lost.
The 2025 authors therefore describe their identification as conditional. If the building was a gērokomeion, the mosaic would be among the earliest datable archaeological traces of an establishment specifically for older people. That finding would be historically important without making it the first nursing home ever built. Care within families and communities existed long before the surviving evidence for institutions, and archaeological discoveries depend as much on what has survived and been recognised as on what once existed.
Around the turn of the fifth century, someone in Hippos commissioned a Christian mosaic that explicitly wished peace to the aged. The pavement’s date and possible location at an entrance allow the excavators to make a serious case for a home for older residents. More of the building must be identified before its function can be established. Whatever the building’s function, its inscription preserves an unusually direct public blessing for older people in a late antique city.
