houses and a mill, where the inhabitants were fishermen. In 1838 Edward Robinson found here a small village, with one or two mills, built by Zahir al-Umar, but by then belonging to the government. British Mandate period In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Tabagha had a population of 175; 157 Muslims and 18 Christians, (17 Roman Catholics and one Syrian Catholic). By the 1931 census the population had increased to 245; 223 Muslims, 21 Christians, and 1 Jew, in a total of 53 houses. The number of people had increased to 330; 310 Muslims and 20 Christians, when the last census was made in the 1945 statistics. That number included Tell el Hunud and Khan el Minya. The total land area was 5 389 dunams. In 1944/45 the village had 7 dunams used for citrus and bananas, 287 were plantations and irrigated land, 2,728 used for cereals, while 2,367 dunams were classified as non-cultivable land. On May 4, 1948, in Operation Broom, just before the outbreak of the Arab-Israeli war, Tabgha was attacked by Palmah forces, supported by the Alexandroni Brigades and local Hagana units. Its Arab inhabitants were expelled and their houses and tents were destroyed under orders by Yigal Allon. Church of the Multiplication The earliest building at Tabgha was a small chapel built in the 4th century A.D. (around 350) by the Jewish convert to Christianity, Joseph of Tiberias. According to Epiphanius, Joseph was a contemporary of Emperor Constantine, a Rabbinical scholar, member of the Sanhedrin and a disciple of Hillel II. Following his conversion, Emperor Constantine gave him the rank of count (comes), and gave him permission to build churches in the Galilee, specifically, in Jewish towns which didn't yet have a Christian community, and the Galilee including the Sea of Galilee, was an area with a Jewish majority. This was probably the shrine described by the pilgrim Egeria at the end of the 4th century. The 4th century small shrine was dismantled in 480 and a bigger chapel was built by Martyrius of Jerusalem, Patriarch of Jerusalem from 478 to 486. Martyrius was Egyptian by origin, and this may be the reason why the floor of his chapel was covered with a beautiful Nile mosaic, a style of art popular in the Byzantine time, describing Nilotic landscape and the fest of the Nile. The mosaic of the fish and