About thirty years from the city synagogue are ruins of what many believe was Peter’s house. Several clues point to this.

• The first-century house was large enough for Jesus and his disciples to stay with Peter, as the Bible says they did. There were several roofed buildings arranged around three court-yards. Total area: about eighty-four square yards.
• After Christianity became legal in the AD 300s, the house was expanded into a church.
• Graffiti etched into the plastered walls read: Jesus, Lord, Christ, and Peter. Also, a Spanish pilgrim named Lady Egeria visited Capernaum in the AD 380s and described the “House of Simon, called Peter.” She said it had been turned into a church, with the original walls still standing.

In the 500s, church leaders leveled Peter’s original house and the church, filled in the ruins with dirt (which preserved the building’s outline), and constructed an octagon-shaped church on top.

Today, that octagon building is also a ruin. Sitting above it, on pillars, is an octagon-shaped memorial center with a see-through floor in the middle, allowing visitors to see the ruins below.

The picture above is peter’s house in Capernaum.