New Synagogue Excavations In Israel and Beyond

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It seems like almost everywhere archaeologists dig in the eastern Galilee these days, they are coming up with ancient synagogues.

In 2007, a third–fourth-century C.E. synagogue with beautifully decorated mosaic floors depicting Biblical episodes was discovered at the site of Khirbet Wadi Hamam outside Tiberias; just last summer, European archaeologists digging only 4 miles away, at Horvat Kur, announced that they, too, had found a synagogue, probably dating at least a century later.

Perhaps the most exciting recent synagogue discovery in Israel was in Magdala, reputedly the home of Mary Magdalene. (Was this the synagogue she 053054regularly attended?) On the shore of the Sea of Galilee, the newly discovered Magdala synagogue, excavated by archaeologists with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), is one of only seven uncovered in Israel that was in use during the first century C.E., when the Jerusalem Temple still stood. The others include Masada, Herodium and Gamla, with which BAR readers are familiar.^a Other possible examples have been excavated at Herodian Jericho, Qiryat Sefer and Modi’in.^b

During the first century C.E., Magdala was a significant fishing village with a major port on the Sea of Galilee, as revealed in recent Italian excavations led by Stefano De Luca (under the general direction of the late Michele Piccirillo).¹ Today the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee is much lower than in ancient times and the new excavations have revealed boat portals or hookups that today are far from the shore.

The Magdala synagogue from this time is richly decorated with frescoes of colored panels. Mosaics with geometric 055056designs covered the floor. Impressive columns supported the roof. And a strange, nearly 3-foot-long stone block found in the center of the synagogue is elaborately carved on the side and the flat top. Among other reliefs, it features one of the earliest depictions of a seven-branched menorah.

Dina Avshalom-Gorni, the Israeli archaeologist who excavated the site for the IAA, believes the artist who carved the menorah may have modeled his depiction after the actual seven-branched menorah that stood in the Temple, making it a rare representation of the candelabra before the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E. Flanking the menorah is a pair of large, long-handled amphorae, as well as a pair of what appear to be fluted columns. Decorating the top of the stone are various heart-shaped and floral motifs, as well as two palm trees that flank a large rosette with a circumscribed petal design. Although the precise function of the stone remains uncertain, it may have been used as a table on which Torah scrolls were rolled out and read or it may have been a stand for an actual menorah used during the service.

By the third and fourth centuries C.E., when the destroyed Jerusalem Temple had long ceased to be a focal point of Jewish life, synagogues were much more common. They were particularly prevalent in the Galilee and Golan regions, where more than 50 synagogues from the Roman period and late antiquity have been identified.

Among these is the synagogue at Khirbet Wadi Hamam recently identified by Hebrew University archaeologist Uzi Leibner. Digging barely a foot below the surface, Leibner came across the synagogue’s well-preserved stone walls—some still standing to a height of more than 8 feet. It was a large rectangular building divided by three rows of columns into a central hall and three narrow surrounding aisles. The building’s entrance faces south toward Jerusalem. All but the entrance wall are lined with a double row of low stone benches. The 057synagogue could seat as many as 180 people. Built as early as the late third century C.E., it was significantly renovated less than a century later, probably because of damage suffered during the massive earthquake of 363 C.E. Only a few decades after the renovation, the building was destroyed, possibly by another earthquake. It was never rebuilt.

An intricate, multipaneled mosaic carpet once adorned the floor of the Hamam synagogue, but only fragments have survived. A circular zodiac may have been featured in the center of the floor, a common motif in late antique synagogue mosaics.^c

The eastern, northern and western aisles of the Hamam synagogue were decorated with ten or 12 mosaic panels, only three of which have substantial segments preserved. These three panels, however, contain elaborate figural narratives, most likely depicting episodes from the Bible. A few ancient synagogues have been discovered with mosaics of famous Biblical stories, such as the binding of Isaac at the Beth Alpha synagogue and David playing his harp at the Gaza synagogue,^d but the Hamam mosaics are unique both in terms of their complexity and the individual episodes they portray. A fragmentary mosaic panel in the eastern aisle depicts a number of craftsmen, including carpenters, masons and porters, toiling away on a towering, monumental stone structure. The workers 058059ascend scaffolds and ladders to reach the heights of the building, depicted as a large, multistoried, well-built stone edifice. The scene cannot be conclusively identified but it may depict the construction of Solomon’s Temple (1 Kings 5–6), a subject never before identified in ancient Jewish art.

In an equally fragmented mosaic panel from the synagogue’s western aisle, a giant warrior, who unfortunately has only his lower extremities preserved, holds three armed but significantly smaller enemies by their bloody locks, while he tramples two others underfoot. Another warrior on horseback is shown fleeing the scene. Though Leibner originally thought this scene might involve the Biblical giant Goliath, it more likely represents the story of Samson smiting the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass (Judges 15:15–17). This story was popular in both Christian and rabbinic circles and many of the panel’s iconographic elements are found in later Christian art.

Another even more fragmentary panel depicts the drowning of Pharaoh’s army in the Red Sea (Exodus 14–15).

In a small Galilean village a few miles from the Wadi Hamam synagogue, but dated about a century later, is the Horvat Kur synagogue. Archaeologists from Leiden University, the University of Bern and the University of Helsinki came down upon a 33-foot-long wall that turned out to be the western wall of the synagogue, constructed of carefully hewn basalt ashlars. While very little of the building’s interior has been excavated, it is assumed that the building faces south toward Jerusalem. The excavated western wall is lined with a low stone bench that faces a large open floor covered by a thick layer of high-quality gray plaster. Outside of the building to the west of the wall, excavators identified a colonnaded cobblestone courtyard attached to the synagogue that was littered with coins, roof tile fragments and pottery dating to as early as 400 C.E. Also found on the surface and around the building were a large column fragment, skillfully crafted architectural pieces including pilasters with floral designs, and thousands of mosaic stones (tesserae), proving that even small-town Galilean synagogues were well built and beautifully decorated.

Taken together, the synagogue discoveries at Magdala, Wadi Hamam and Horvat Kur are providing archaeologists with fresh insights into how the Jewish communities of the Galilee, augmented by refugees from Jerusalem, developed and thrived in the centuries following the Roman destruction of the Jerusalem Temple.

2It seems like almost everywhere archaeologists dig in the eastern Galilee these days, they are coming up with ancient synagogues.