Image Details

FRANKIE SNYDER

THE BANIAS FLOOR DESIGN (left) shares some fundamental features with floor patterns known from Herod the Great’s Third Palace at Jericho (right). Herod’s architects seemingly worked from a common design template of repeating squares and octagons (center) that could then be adapted and manipulated to create new, original patterns. The similarity in flooring design is one indication that the Banias building was not a temple, as Netzer suspected, but rather a royal palace of Herod the Great. In these drawings, colors have been assigned arbitrarily but are meant to help readers identify the patterns.