Mitzpe Shivta is located in the northern Negev Desert along the Incense Route that linked the Roman Mediterranean and the Arabian Peninsula and close to one of the main holy land pilgrimage routes that connected Jerusalem and Gaza on the Mediterranean shore, Mount Sinai and Egypt. Radiocarbon dating from our initial test excavation and dated inscriptions point to an occupation of Mitzpe Shivta in an era that was marked by the sharp decline of a short-lived late antique agricultural florescence of the Negev Desert as a response to global climate change and contracting international markets. The heyday of the Negev was characterized by the emergence of large settlements supplied by sophisticated water management and farms in their immediate hinterland. Wine became the major cash crop of the desert settlers and was traded as a luxury export in the entire Mediterranean and beyond. Decline of this prosperity is evident by the late 6th century CE. It is also in this very short moment of economic blossom, when the first Christian monasteries sprang up in the desert region – many of which survived the late 6th century crisis and the subsequent Islamic Conquest (634 CE). Due to its exposed location on a high plateau, its church, chapel, fortification, as well as numerous rock-cut caves covered with pilgrim inscriptions and Christian decorations, early visitors addressed Mitzpe Shivta as a Christian monastery and pilgrim xenodochium – a categorization that still needs to be reviewed in detail today.

The architectural features of the site – the religious and fortification structures – as well as the extensive agricultural relics in its periphery, have the potential to shed new light on the role that security, spirituality, pilgrimage tourism and agriculture have played in times of crisis. The character and agency of early monasteries in the Negev's rise and fall and the role of monastic institutions as repositories of antique agricultural knowledge and resilience in times of economic deterioration are still insufficiently researched. Answers to these questions may be found in Mitzpe Shivta. History of research at Mitzpe Shivta indicates that the site was never fully explored and thus did not contribute to the plethora of research on the rise and fall of the Negev agricultural society by the end of the Byzantine era. In this project, therefore, the well-preserved site is to be systematically archaeologically studied for the first time.