In vivid color: 1,500-year-old Huqoq mosaic depicts Samson, animals hunting
12th and final season of excavations from 5th century house of worship reveals additional sections of mosaic in breathtaking detail
Parts of a well-preserved and colorful 1,600-year-old mosaic, including scenes from the story of Samson and depictions of a tiger hunting an ibex, were recently uncovered in an ancient synagogue in Huqoq, near the Sea of Galilee.
The mosaic uncovered this year is the last part to be excavated from the 5th century synagogue, after 11 seasons of archaeological digs. The entire 20×14 meter (65×45 feet) floor is covered in vibrant mosaics illustrating biblical scenes and ornate designs from the period.
The mosaics on the synagogue floor excavated during previous seasons have included the earliest known depictions of biblical Deborah and Yael, the first known depiction of the story of the oasis of Elim during the Exodus, as well as illustrations of Noah’s Ark, Jonah and the fish, and the splitting of the Red Sea.
“There is no other synagogue like this anywhere in Israel that has so many different mosaics with so many different biblical themes and parallels,” said Professor Jodi Magness, an archaeologist and professor of early Judaism as the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill.
Magness has been excavating Huqoq every summer since 2011, except for two years during the pandemic, along with an international team of experts, students, and volunteers. This year, the team finished excavating the interior of the Late Roman synagogue and the Mamluk synagogue from the 14th century that was built on top of it, uncovering the last unexcavated part of the mosaic.
Mosaic and more
The mosaic has generated headlines each year with the technicolor discoveries of intricately preserved illustrations, but Magness was originally drawn to the site for very different reasons.
“The mosaics get the publicity, but you have to realize we have huge quantities of other artifacts, including huge quantities of pottery, hundreds of coins, boxes and boxes of animal bones, and glass fragments,” she said. The building itself has a lot of unique architecture, including columns still retaining some of their original, colorful plaster paintings.
The mosaic was an accidental discovery, after Magness’s team first started excavating the synagogue in 2011. Her original research focuses on the impact of early Christian rule, and what happened to Jewish villages as Christianity became more widespread.
“Many of my Israeli colleagues think that Christian rule was oppressive to the Jews and that these early Jewish settlements declined, and some even disappeared,” she said. “My impression from the archaeology was always exactly the opposite, that the settlements continued to prosper and flourish.”
The excavations show that Huqoq was growing throughout the 4th, 5th, and 6th centuries, and the size of the mosaic means it was a fairly prosperous village, Magness said. Architecturally, the synagogue is similar to the synagogue at Capernaum, which was a two-floor building with galleries. Most synagogues from this time period, including Capernaum, had floors paved with flagstones.
The mosaic floor is part of the 5th century synagogue, and one of the reasons it is so well preserved is that in the 14th century, the floor was covered and sealed as the synagogue underwent an expansion.
The synagogue was likely enlarged at this time due to an international highway from Damascus to Cairo that ran next to Yakuk, Huqoq’s medieval and Arabic name, as well as the nearby Tomb of Habakkuk the Prophet, which became a destination for late medieval Jewish pilgrimage. It is the only known synagogue from the Mamluk period, from 1250 to 1517, uncovered in Israel, and so can provide a lot of information about Jewish worship during that time, Magness said.
“The 14th century Mamluk synagogue is just as important as the Late Roman synagogue,” she said. “But without the mosaics [of the Late Roman synagogue] it certainly would not have attracted this level of attention and certainly not amongst the public eye.”
Magness, who has been fascinated by synagogues in the centuries after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, chose to excavate in Huqoq because it was an early synagogue that had never before been excavated.
An ancient world in technicolor
This year’s newly discovered mosaics consist of a large panel, featuring a Hebrew inscription framed within a wreath, and an Aramaic inscription that lists the names either of the donors who provided funding for the synagogue’s mosaics or the artists who made them, asking that they be remembered for good. The wreath is flanked on either side by lions resting their forepaws on bulls’ heads. The entire panel is surrounded by a decorated border showing animals of prey pursuing other animals, including the tiger hunting the ibex.
Other parts of the mosaic that were uncovered this year include parts of the panels depicting the biblical story of Samson. Previously, the team excavated scenes of Samson and the foxes who burned the wheat fields of the Philistines, mentioned in Judges 15:4, and Samson carrying the gate of Gaza on his shoulders, referenced in Judges 16:3. The newly exposed sections include a Philistine horseman and a dead Philistine soldier.
Magness said that while choosing a favorite part of the mosaic is like a parent choosing a favorite child, she especially likes the panels depicting the story of Jonah. “The Jonah panels have a lot of humor in them,” she said. “You’ve got Jonah’s little feet dangling out of the mouths of three fish, it’s very funny.”
The mosaic is not currently open to the public and has been completely backfilled for preservation. Magness said the Israel Antiquities Authority and KKL JNF are working on developing the site for tourism so visitors will be able to appreciate the mosaic and the rest of the synagogue in person.
Publication, not excavation
This year, the team, which included students from UNC-Chapel Hill, Austin College, Brigham Young University and the University of Toronto, finished excavating the interior of the synagogue, and started excavating a beautiful paved courtyard outside. Magness does not plan to return to Huqoq and hopes another team will take over excavation of the courtyard and the exterior of the synagogue.
“The goal of archaeology is not excavation, but publication,” she said. “So even though it would be certainly possible to continue indefinitely and carry on around the synagogue… we have a lot of material that we’ve accumulated over the course of these seasons. Now, we are turning to processing that and preparing it for final publication, which is the process that will take years.”
A full photo of the entire mosaic, including all of the panels, has never been published in the popular media because Magness is waiting for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Magness has only released photos of certain details through the years.
She admits that her years of toil in research and publication do not align with the swashbuckling Indiana Jones persona that most people believe archaeologists are meant to embody.
“Publication is a lot less sexy, it’s a very long and involved process,” she said. But that doesn’t mean it’s any less important.
“Once we excavated that material out of the ground, you can never put it back the way it was, which is why archaeologists record everything that we do, by every means possible,” Magness said. “Archaeology is a destructive process, so if we do not publish all of those records, effectively, we have destroyed the past.”