Chorazin
Ancient Galilean village cursed in the Gospels.
Chorazin, also known as Chorazain or Korazim, was a Roman and Byzantine-era village in the Upper Galilee. It is primarily known from the Christian Gospels. The settlement sat on the Korazim Plateau, on a hill above the Sea of Galilee's northern shore, about 2.5 miles from Capernaum in present-day Israel. The modern Israeli town of Korazim takes its name from this site.
Quick Facts
- Location
- Korazim Plateau, Upper Galilee, above the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee
- Distance from capernaum
- 2.5 miles
- Period
- Roman and Byzantine
- Area of ruins
- 25 acres
- Excavation began
- 1905
- Modern depopulated village
- Khirbat Karraza (depopulated May 4, 1948)
Facts from the source article.
History
Archaeologists have identified two periods of settlement at Chorazin, based on coins and pottery. The town suffered a partial destruction in the 4th century, likely from an earthquake, after which the settlement of Khirbat Karraza arose. During Ottoman times, the Zangariyye Bedouin tribe lived there, and a shrine to the local saint al-Shaykh Ramadan stood on the site. By 1992, Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi noted that several village houses remained intact, one older structure had been restored, and the saint’s tomb was decaying, its original building gone, surrounded by large carob trees.
Archaeology
Archaeological work at Chorazin began in 1905 and continued in the 1920s, with further digs in the 1960s and again from 1980 to 1987. In 2004, a small salvage excavation by the Israel Antiquities Authority focused on an ancient road north of Moshav Amnun. The settlement flourished mainly in the 3rd and 4th centuries, with buildings made from local black basalt. Covering 25 acres, the ruins are split into five quarters, centered around a synagogue. Nearby is a ritual bath, or mikvah, surrounded by public and residential structures. Millstones for olive oil suggest the economy relied on olive cultivation. In June 2026, a twelve-year-old boy found a 1,500-year-old blue gemstone during a dig in Korazim National Park, identified as an agate used by Romans in jewelry to show wealth. The most prominent surviving structure is a large basalt synagogue, built in the late 3rd century, destroyed in the 4th, and rebuilt in the 6th. It features unusual three-dimensional carvings, including a pair of stone lions—similar to ones at Kfar Bar'am—along with depictions of wine-making, animals, a Medusa, an armed soldier, and an eagle, originally likely painted bright colors. Jacob Ory, who excavated in 1926 for the British Mandate, described a second synagogue about 200 meters west of the first, but later digs have not found evidence to confirm it.
Identification
The English theologian John Lightfoot writing in the 17th century suggested that Chorazin might have referred to a wider area around Cana in Galilee, rather than a single city or village. In his Biblical Researches in Palestine in the mid-nineteenth century, Edward Robinson visited Khirbat Karraza, but concluded it was not the Biblical Chorazin, because the ruins were not significant enough and the site was not near the shore of the Sea of Galilee, as stated by Jerome. Robinson described the ruins as consisting simply of a few foundations of black stones, the remains of a poor and inconsiderable village, known as Khirbet Kerâzeh. He noted that the site was an hour distant from the lake, shut in among the hills without any view of the lake, and remote from any public road whether ancient or modern.
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