BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

The Face of an Israelite Judge

Another Samson mosaic revealed at Huqoq

During excavations this summer, yet another mosaic depicting Samson was uncovered at the fifth-century synagogue of Huqoq in Lower Galilee. Last year, as reported in the pages of Biblical Archaeology Review,* the Huqoq Excavation Project—led by Jodi Magness of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Shua Kisilevitz of the Israel Antiquities Authority—unearthed a mosaic depicting an episode from Judges 15 in which Samson ties 150 pairs of foxes to torches by their tails to destroy the fields of the Philistines. The mosaic found this season is a scene of Samson—gigantic in stature—carrying the city gate of Gaza on his shoulders (Judges 16:3). As Jodi Magness explained, “The discovery of two Samson scenes in the Huqoq synagogue suggests that it was decorated with a Samson cycle—the first such cycle known in Israel.” Also discovered this season was a mosaic that may depict a martyrdom story from the apocryphal book of Maccabees. If confirmed, it would be the first example of imagery from an apocryphal book being used to decorate an ancient synagogue.

Read more about the new Huqoq mosaics.
 

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Related Resources

For more on Huqoq and its impressive mosaics, read these Bible History Daily exclusives:

Karen Britt, “The Huqoq Synagogue Mosaics.”

David Amit, “Mosaic Inscription from a Synagogue at Horvat Huqoq.”
 

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Notes

* Jodi Magness, “Samson in the Synagogue,” Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 2013.