Bible Scenes Uncovered in Ruins of Ancient Synagogue
On a hill above the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel, archaeologists have discovered one amazing fifth-century floor mosaic after another.
A fabric roof offers excavators shade from the blazing sun but can't block the brutal heat of the day in June.
Photograph by Oded Balilty, AP for National Geographic
By A. R. Williams
PUBLISHED July 5, 2016
Archaeologists excavating a Roman-era synagogue at the site of Huqoq, Israel, have uncovered two new panels of a mosaic floor with instantly identifiable subjects—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.
Such images 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."
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