Archaeological and XRF analysis of a byzantine weight from hippos sheds new light on the transition from Christian to the Islamic rule

A unique Byzantine brass weight found in Antiochia Hippos (Sussita), bearing a concealed cross and an unfamiliar feature on its reverse, helps reveal some of the changes that occurred in Hippos during the transition between the Byzantine and Early Islamic periods. The weight illuminates the local Byzantine and post-Byzantine metrological weight systems, as well as the administrative and religious relationships between the Christian city of Hippos and Umayyad Jabariya, the capital of the region. Discovered in the debris of a church destroyed in the earthquake of 749 CE, it is among the first archaeologically dated Byzantine weights used during the Umayyad period.