The nave, the central space of the church, was where the clergy conducted the liturgy. Notice the fine stone slabs beneath your feet. These were not cut for this church, but reused from an earlier Roman building. Late antique builders often incorporated material from the city's past into new monuments. The builders, masons and bricklayers, smartly left behind small traces of their presence. Look closely at the brick piers beside the apse. Can you see the crosses cut into the wet mortar? These marks would once have been hidden beneath plaster and painted decoration, all now lost. Yet they were more than simple construction marks. They were protective symbols, reflecting a world in which faith touched every aspect of life, including the building of a church.