Initial excavations of this site were performed by Harvard University without the aid of modern excavation or recording
techniques and without a valid chronology of Late Roman Byzantine ceramics (Russell, 1980).
Reisner, Fischer, and Lyon (1924: 218) report the following which
may indicate earthquake damage:
Restoration - During the Severan period the
Basilica and the
Forum were
entirely reconstructed. The building, like those on the summit, had apparently
been in ruins. Many of the columns had been overthrown, and the pedestals
carried away.
Gibson (2014) reports that
Samaria-Sebaste was destroyed during the
First Jewish War (66–73 CE),
"but was rebuilt and gained the status of a
Roman colony from the hands of
Septimus Severus in 200 CE.
By the time that Christianity became the dominant religion, Sebaste was already deteriorating
and after the
Arab conquest
in the first half of the seventh century CE it was left in ruins". This indicates that the
Severan period referred to by Reisner, Fischer, and Lyon (1924) could have lasted from 200 CE until sometime before the middle of the 7th century CE.
Russell (1980) reports that later excavations by
Crowfoot, Kenyon, and Sukenik (1966:137-38) found
evidence of destruction and subsequent rebuilding in a large house found in the eastern
insula. Crowfoot et. al. (1966) described the evidence as follows :
No portion of the walls above ground level survived.
The foundations show at least two periods. some badly
built walls with very rubbly building being added to the
better built earlier ones. Nearly all the earlier ones seem
to have been partially rebuilt in the worse style, with two
or three courses of rubble on the top of their solidly built
foundations. This would indicate that the original
building had been destroyed to ground level, possibly by
an earthquake
According to Russell (1980), Crowfoot, Kenyon, and Sukenik (1966) also
suggested that the
Basilica of the site
might have been converted into a
cathedral during
the 4th century AD (Crowfoot, Kenyon, and Sukenik, 1966: 37).