MessageToEagle.com – Unique and very rare ancient mosaic floor depicting Biblical scenes has been unearthed at the site of Huqoq, located about 2.4 kilometres northwest of the Sea of Galilee is an ancient Jewish village near the modern-day town of Migdal.
Archaeologists were excavating ancient Roman synagogue when they come across two new panels of a mosaic floor with images of Noah’s ark, and the parting of the Red Sea during the Israelite exodus from Egypt.
“You can see the pharaoh’s soldiers with their chariots and horses drowning, and even being eaten by large fish,” says excavation director Jodi Magness, from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
These kind of depictions are extremely rare in this period. “I know of only two other scenes of the parting of the Red Sea in ancient synagogues,” Magness explains. “One is in the wall paintings at Dura Europos [in Syria], which is a complete scene but different from ours—no fish devouring the Egyptian soldiers. The other is at Wadi Hamam [in Israel], but that’s very fragmentary and poorly preserved.”
Images of Noah’s Ark are also uncommon. According to Magness there are only two similar depictions. One is at the site of Jerash, known as Gerasa in antiquity in Jordan, and the other at the site of Misis, the ancient Mopsuestia in Turkey.
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Magness and her team have been excating many years in the region and they have previously discovered a series of unusual scenes in rectangular panels.
Mosaics were first discovered at the site in 2012, and work has continued each summer since then. In 2012, a mosaic depicting Samson and the foxes (as related in the Bible’s Judges 15:4) was found in the synagogue’s east aisle. The next summer, an adjacent mosaic was uncovered that shows Samson carrying the gate of Gaza on his shoulders (Judges 16:3). Another mosaic discovered in the synagogue’s east aisle in 2013 and 2014 depicts the first non-biblical story ever found decorating an ancient synagogue – perhaps the legendary meeting between Alexander the Great and the Jewish high priest. A mosaic panel uncovered in 2015 next to this scene contains a Hebrew inscription surrounded by human figures, animals, and mythological creatures including putti (cupids).
“This is by far the most extensive series of biblical stories ever found decorating the mosaic floor of an ancient synagogue,” said Magness.
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