Synagogue Excavation Reveals Stunning Mosaic of Zodiac and Torah Ark - The BAS Library
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Home > Magazines > BAR > May/June 1984

Synagogue Excavation Reveals Stunning Mosaic of Zodiac and Torah Ark

By Hershel Shanks

For two seasons in 1961 and 1962 (the second season lasted eight days into 1963) Moshe Dothan, then Deputy Director of the Israeli Department of Antiquities and Museums, directed the excavation of an ancient synagogue at a site known as Hammath Tiberias. Located on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, just 100 yards from the water and adjacent to some ancient hot springs, the site revealed one of the most beautiful, impressive and important synagogues in ancient Palestine.a The jewel in the crown was a magnificent mosaic of unusually high artistic quality with extraordinarily varied themes and motifs; […]

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Footnotes

1.

For the location of Hammath Tiberias, see the map.

2.

Hammath Tiberias—Early Synagogues and the Hellenistic and Roman Remains (Israel Exploration Society, University of Haifa, Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums: Jerusalem, 1983) 88 pp., 36 plates (12 in color).