Samson and the Gate of Gaza

 

By MALIN GRUNBERG BANYASZ

Monday, August 12, 2013

 

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At the site of Huqoq, in Israel’s Galilee region, Jodi Magness of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has discovered a mosaic depicting Samson. The fifth-century work shows him carrying the gate of Gaza on his shoulders—a scene from Judges 16:3.

Another Samson mosaic was found there last year, suggesting the synagogue had been decorated with a pictorial cycle, the first of its kind uncovered in Israel.

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Taken from: http://www.archaeology.org/issues/103-1309/trenches/1144-samson-mosaic-discovered-in-galilee

 

Mosaics of Huqoq

By MALIN GRUNBERG BANYASZ
Friday, October 05, 2012

 

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In June 2012, Jodi Magness of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill began her second season of excavation in the village of Huqoq, in Israel’s lower eastern Galilee. There, in the remains of a Late Roman or Byzantine synagogue, she discovered an extraordinary mosaic depicting female faces flanking a medallion with Hebrew or Aramaic inscriptions. In another area of the floor, Magness uncovered an image of the Biblical judge Samson placing torches between foxes’ tails. Although archaeologists have found mosaics in three other synagogues in this area of the Galilee, the example from Huqoq is unprecedented—it’s the earliest securely identified image of Samson in a synagogue in Israel. “This scene comes right from Judges 15:4,” says Magness, “and shows Samson taking revenge on the Philistines, the Israelites’ traditional enemy.” It’s also interesting that in the Wadi Hamam synagogue only a few miles away, archaeologist Uzi Leibner of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem found a mosaic in 2008 that he thought might also depict Samson. By comparing the clothing and size of the figures—both are portrayed as giants—it’s now possible to identify the Wadi Hamam image as Samson as well. The question remains, though, whether Samson had a special significance in this area of Israel.

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Taken from: http://www.archaeology.org/issues/54-1211/from-the-trenches/225-from-the-trenches-mosaics-of-huqoq