Judging Samson The Synagogue Floor Mosaic

JUDGING SAMSON: THE SYNAGOGUE FLOOR MOSAICS OF
HORVAT HUQOQ AND KHIRBET WADI HAMAM
Approved by:
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Dr. Pamela Patton, Professor and Chair of Art History
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Dr. Stephanie Langin-Hooper, Assistant Professor and Karl Kilinski II
Endowed Chair of Hellenic Visual Culture
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Dr. Mark Chancey, Associate Professor of Religious Studies
JUDGING SAMSON: THE SYNAGOGUE FLOOR MOSAICS OF
HORVAT HUQOQ AND KHIRBET WADI HAMAM
A Thesis Presented to the Graduate Faculty of
Meadows School of the Arts
Southern Methodist University
in
Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the degree of
Master of Arts
with a
Major in Art History
by
Elena Gittleman
(B.A., Art History & Archaeology, Washington University in St. Louis)
May 16, 2015

Copyright 2015
Elena Gittleman
All Rights Reserved

Gittleman, Elena B.A., Washington University in St. Louis, 2013
Judging Samson: The Synagogue Floor Mosaics of

Horvat Huqoq and Khirbet Wadi
Advisor: Dr. Pamela Patton
Master of Arts conferred May 16, 2015
Thesis completed May 4, 2015.
This study addresses the figural mosaic floors of the late third or early fourth
century synagogue at Khirbet Wadi Hamam and the fifth century synagogue at Horvat
Huqoq. While mosaic floors were common in Palestinian synagogues in Late Antiquity,
Wadi Hamam and Huqoq differ significantly from the compositional norm. Instead of the
typical arrangement in which Biblical figurative scenes were laid in the nave, both of
these synagogues chose to include figurative panels in their aisles. Additionally, the
synagogues at Wadi Hamam and Huqoq are the only buildings from Late Antiquity to
include scenes from the life of the Biblical Judge Samson in their mosaic programs.
Although synagogue mosaic floors have been studied extensively for many years, these
floors, being recently excavated, have not received much scholarly attention. The
similarity in composition and subject matter between the two synagogues links the two
villages and brings to light many questions regarding the ways in which Jewish cultural
identity found expression in these mosaic pavements.
The first section of this thesis establishes the shortcomings in previous
scholarship on Jewish mosaics in Palestine, specifically in the use of problematic labels
iv
such as “Hellenistic” and “Romanized” that scholars have relied upon. This section
argues for the necessity of a postcolonial approach to the study of synagogue mosaics in
Late Antiquity, and to understand the mosaics produced in Jewish contexts in Palestine as
hybridized evidence of a shared cultural milieu. The second and third section offers an in-
depth discussion of the synagogues and villages of Huqoq and Wadi Hamam to better
understand the connection between the two sites and the place they occupy in the wider
empire. Finally, the fourth section addresses the Samson mosaics of both synagogues,
analyzing their compositional and stylistic precedents to establish their hybridized use of
Greco-Roman artistic traditions. By combining the elite identity of their colonizers with
their own religious and cultural past, the mosaics of Huqoq and Wadi Hamam embodied
the strength and power of their past Jewish identity, while at the same time asserting
themselves as powerful participants in the Roman empire.
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS x
Chapter
1. INTRODUCTION 1
2. JEWISH MOSAICS: A NEW APPROACH

Previous Scholarship 11
Methodology 24
3. HORVAT HUQOQ: THE SITE AND THE SYNAGOGUE

Excavation History 30
The Huqoq Synagogue Mosaics 34
The Village in its Historical and Art Historical Context 46
4. KHIRBET WADI HAMAM: SAMSON IN THE GALILEE

Excavation History 56
The Wadi Hamam Synagogue Mosaics 64
5. SAMSON’S GALILEE: CONSTRUCTING A

HYBRID JEWISH IDENTITY
The Problematic Labels of Jewish Mosaics 74
Hellenistic and Roman Mosaics in Palestine 79
A Postcolonial Khirbet Wadi Hamam and Horvat Huqoq 86
Why Samson? 93
Why Wadi Hamam?: The Shared Cultural Milieu of the Galilee 98
6. CONCLUSION 103
FIGURES 109
BIBLIOGRAPHY 127
vi
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1. Samson Smiting the Philistines with the Jawbone of an Ass,

c.280-300 CE, floor mosaic, 214 x 141 cm, the synagogue of
Khirbet Wadi Hamam, Lower Galilee, Israel, Israel Museum,
Jerusalem. 1
2. Samson Carrying the Gates of Gaza, late 4th/early 5th century,

floor mosaic, the synagogue of Horvat Huqoq, Lower
Galilee, Israel. 1
3. Samson and the Foxes, late 4th/early 5th century, floor mosaic,
the synagogue of Horvat Huqoq, Lower Galilee, Israel. 1
4. Synagogue floor mosaic of Hammath Tiberias, c. 3rd/4th

century, floor mosaic, Tiberias, Lower Galilee, Israel 2
5. Synagogue floor mosaic of Beth Alpha, c. 6th century, floor

mosaic, near Beth She’an, Jezreel Valley, Israel. 2
6. Sepphoris synagogue mosaic, c. 5th century, Tzippori National

Archaeological Park, Israel, drawing of mosaic in the nave,
created by Pnina Arad, courtesy of Z. Weiss 2
7. Map of Lower Galilee, courtesy of Grey and Magness. 2
8. The Construction of Solomon’s Temple, c.280-300 CE floor

mosaic, c. 194 x 130 cm, the synagogue of Khirbet Wadi
Hamam, Lower Galilee, Israel. 3
9. The Drowning of Pharaoh’s Army in the Red Sea, c.280-300

CE, floor mosaic, 210 x 60 cm, the synagogue of Khirbet
Wadi Hamam, Lower Galilee, Israel. 3
vii
10. The synagogue of Khirbet Wadi Hamam, floor plan with
preserved mosaic fragments indicated in gray, courtesy of
Leibner and Miller. 3
11. The synagogue of Horvat Huqoq, floor plan, created by S.

Pirsky, courtesy of Magness, et. al. 5
12. Samson Smiting the Philistines, 4th century CE, fresco, Via
Latina Catacombs, Rome. 13
13. Samson Slaying the Philistines, 879-883 CE, illuminated

manuscript, The Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus, Paris, gr.
510 folio 347v, Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris. 13
14. King David Surrounded by his Weapons, late 5th century CE,
floor mosaic, the synagogue of Meroth, Upper Galilee, Israel. 16
15. Site map of Huqoq, created by J. Bucko, courtesy of Magness

et. al. 30
16. Women’s Faces with Inscription, late 4th/early 5th century, floor
mosaic, the synagogue of Horvat Huqoq, Lower Galilee,
Israel. 41
17. Detail, Northern Women’s Face, late 4th/early 5th century, floor
mosaic, the synagogue of Horvat Huqoq, Lower Galilee,
Israel. 42
18. The Maccabees, late 4th/early 5th century, floor mosaic, the
synagogue of Horvat Huqoq, Lower Galilee, Israel. 43
19. Eastern Aisle showing Samson and the Foxes and Women’s
Faces with Inscription, late 4th/early 5th century, floor mosaic
and synagogue walls, the synagogue of Horvat Huqoq,
Lower Galilee, Israel. 45
20. Mikveh, Horvat Huqoq, Lower Galilee, Israel, courtesy of J.

Haberman. 47
21. Theater Mask Embedded in Rich Garland, 2nd century BCE,

floor mosaic Tel Dor, Israel. 50
22. Geometric mosaic, c. 63-40 BCE, Hasmonean Palace, Jericho. 50
viii
23. The Drinking Contest of Dionysus and Herakles, c. 100 CE,
floor mosaic, Roman triclinium (dining room), Antioch. 52
24. Hunting Scene, early 6th century, floor mosaic, villa at Daphne,
Antioch. 52
25. Dionysiac mosaic, early 3rd century, floor mosaic, triclinium

(dining room), House of Dionysus, Sepphoris, Lower Galilee,
Israel. 52
26. Orpheus mosaic, late 3rd century, floor mosaic, triclinium

(dining room), House of Orpheus, Sepphoris, Lower Galilee,
Israel. 53
27. Site Map of Khirbet Wadi Hamam, courtesy of Leibner. 58
28. Building Solomon’s Temple, Quedlinburg Itala, c. 420-430 CE,

illuminated manuscript, old Latin translation of Bible, Rome,
Cod. theol. lat. fol. 4r, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer
Kulturbesitz, Berlin. 70
29. Dolphin, early 1st century, floor mosaic, Beth She’an, Jezreel
Valley, Israel. 81
30. Detail, Zodiac and Helios, synagogue mosaic of Hammath

Tiberias, c. 3rd/4th century, floor mosaic, Tiberias, Lower
Galilee, Israel. 85
31. Dura Europos synagogue wall paintings, c. 244 CE, tempura

over plaster, synagogue at Dura Europos, Syria. 86
ix
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to take this opportunity to thank my advisor, Dr. Pamela Patton, for
her unwavering support and encouragement of my research, which has been invaluable
for the completion of this project. I would also like to thank Dr. Stephanie Langin-
Hooper for her patient guidance and for providing me with the tools necessary to apply
an innovative analytic framework to my work. I am thankful to Dr. Mark Chancey who
offered his expertise and knowledge at key points in my research. I would also like to
thank Dr. Shira Lander and the rest of the Jewish Studies Interdisciplinary Research
Group at SMU for providing wonderful feedback and insights in the early stages of
writing. Over the past two years, the entire Art History faculty at SMU has supported my
education and development as a scholar, including the Cullum Travel Research Grant.
With this grant, I was able to travel to Israel and volunteer at the Huqoq Excavation
Project in the summer of 2014. I am indebted to the kindness and support of the entire
Huqoq excavation staff and students and especially to Dr. Jodi Magness, Dr. Karen Britt,
Dr. Matthew Grey and Shua Kisilevitz. They truly welcomed me to the team with open
arms and provided me with invaluable experience and insight into the site of Huqoq. I
would also like to thank Dr. Uzi Leibner, for his assistance, and for providing me with
information from his upcoming publication.
x
Finally, I extend my sincere thanks to those who personally supported me
throughout my time at SMU. I would like to thank my classmates, especially my fellow
second-years, for being an amazing group of friends and colleagues, for challenging me
when I needed it, and for their unconditional support. A special thank you to Adrianna
Stephenson for her professional and emotional support and for always keeping our spirits
high. And most of all, I would like to thank my friends and family, especially my parents,
for their unwavering support and encouragement during my time at SMU and throughout
my entire life.
xi
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
In the years between 2007 and 2014, the excavations of two Galilean synagogues
have revealed floor mosaics depicting scenes from the life of Samson from the Sefer
Shoftim (‫)שופטים ספר‬, or the Book of Judges.1 Khirbet Wadi Hamam [Fig. 1] and Horvat
Huqoq [Fig. 2 &3] were prosperous Jewish villages occupied from the early first century
BCE until the late fourth century CE, and from c.1275 BCE until the mid-fourteenth century
2
CE, respectively. Both villages constructed monumental synagogues decorated with
figural floor mosaics: Wadi Hamam in the late third and Huqoq in the late fourth/early
fifth centuries CE.3 Floor mosaics were one of the most popular forms of synagogue
decoration during this time period, in part due to rabbinic leniency regarding this
particular art form. The Rabbis acquiesced that floor mosaics were least likely to be
1
Uzi Leibner, “Excavations at Khirbet Wadi Hamam (Lower Galilee): the Synagogue and the Settlement,”
Journal of Roman Archaeology 23 (2010): 220-264.
Jodi Magness, Shua Kisilevitz, Karen Britt, Matthew Grey and Chad Spigel, “Huqoq (Lower Galilee) and
its Synagogue Mosaics: Preliminary Report on the Excavations of 2011-2013,” Journal of Roman
Archaeology 27 (2014): 337-355.
2
Leibner, “Excavations at Khirbet Wadi Hamam,” 235.
Magness et al, “Huqoq and its Synagogue Mosaics,” 341-347.
3
Matthew Grey with Jodi Magness, “Finding Samson in the Byzantine Galilee: The 2011-2012
Archaeological Excavation at Huqoq,” Studies in the Bible and Antiquity 5 (2013): 4-7. The occupation of
the site of Huqoq continued until 1948, however, the 13th century marks the end of the site as a Jewish
village, and the beginning of it as a Muslim one. The first definitely Jewish occupants are mentioned in
Joshua 1 and Chronicles, the authors of which mention Huqoq as land allotted to the tribe of Asher when
the Israelites enter the Holy Land. See Huqoq Timeline at http://huqoqexcavationproject.org/about-huqoq/
1
mistaken for idols or to encourage idolatrous behavior, and therefore did not break the
Second Commandment. The mosaic program in these synagogues deviates from the
“typical” Galilean synagogue mosaic program typology, which scholars based on the
synagogues at Hammath Tiberias (late fourth century) [Fig. 4], Beth Alpha (sixth century
CE) [Fig. 5], and Sepphoris (fifth century CE) [Fig. 6].4 The greatest differences lay in the
use of figural mosaics outside of the central nave and the choice of subject. The
synagogues at Wadi Hamam and Huqoq are the only buildings from Late Antiquity to
include Samson in their mosaic programs.5 As these villages are located only five
kilometers apart, [Fig. 7] and are roughly contemporaneous, they present an important
pair for the study of synagogue mosaics in Late Antiquity. By studying the similarities
between the two sites, and how they stand out in comparison to other ancient Jewish
mosaics, this thesis will shed new light on the ways in which Jewish cultural identity
found expression in these mosaic pavements.
The first excavation site is that of Khirbet Wadi Hamam, a village occupied from
around 80 BCE until the late fourth or early fifth century CE.6 The settlement is located in
the Eastern Galilee, Israel, roughly six kilometers away from Tiberias, one of the ancient
urban centers of the Galilee. Dr. Uzi Leibner, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was
4
See for example Lee I. Levine, Visual Judaism in Late Antiquity: Historical Contexts of Jewish Art (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 228-229.
Rachel Hachlili, Ancient Mosaic Pavements: Themes, Issues, and Trends (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 111-147.
Ruth and Asher Ovadiah, Hellenistic, Roman and Early Byzantine Mosaic Pavements in Israel (Rome:
L’Erma di Bretschneider, 1987).
E.L. Sukenik, Ancient Synagogues in Palestine and Greece (London: Oxford University Press, 1934).
5
This is of course with the exception of the church at Mopsuestia, the 4th or 5th century church in Cilicia
(present-day Eastern Turkey). See Ludwig Budde, Antike Mosaiken in Kilikien, Band 1: Fruhchristliche
Mosaiken in Misis-Mopsuhestia (Recklinghausen: Aurel Bougers Verlag, 1969).
6
Leibner, “Excavations at Khirbet Wadi Hamam,” 235-236.
2
the director of this excavation project, which was conducted from 2007-2009.7 The
remains of a late third-century monumental synagogue at the site included a heavily
damaged mosaic floor. The mosaic fragments include a construction scene thought to
depict either the building of the Temple of Solomon (1 Kings 5-6) or the slave-labor of
the Israelites in Egypt (Exodus 1) [Fig. 8]; a scene of the Pharaoh’s army drowning in the
Red Sea (Exodus 14-15) [Fig. 9]; and Samson Smiting the Philistines with the Jawbone
of an Ass (Judges 15) [see Fig. 1].8
The fragmentary Samson scene is located along the western aisle of the
synagogue, near the southern entrance and the bema [Fig. 10]. The scene is enclosed in a
double-strand guilloche border and depicts Samson as a giant defeating his enemy. The
scene contains eight human figures and a dedicatory inscription in Hebrew.9 The giant
figure of Samson occupies roughly two-thirds of the composition and is depicted in
action. He holds aloft three figures with bleeding head-wounds, and two more dead
figures gush blood beneath his feet. A figure of a rider and his horse is depicted fleeing
from Samson; his horse is in a gallop, and his spear is pointed away from the slaughter,
although he turns his torso and eyes slightly behind him to witness Samson’s wrath. The
final figure is located near what appears to be some kind of building. Only the figure’s
lower body remains, but he wears clothing distinctly different from the other figures,
which are all barelegged and wear simple tunics. This body wears some sort of trouser or
legging and a more elaborate tunic. The figure turns away from Samson, the position of
7
The final excavation report is forthcoming.
8
Uzi Leibner and Shulamit Miller, “Appendix: A Figural Mosaic in the Synagogue at Khirbet Wadi
Hamam,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 23 (2010): 241-261.
9
Leibner and Miller, “A Figural Mosaic in the Synagogue at Khirbet Wadi Hamam,” 249-252.
3
his legs affirming his movement. Finally, three weapons lie on the ground by Samson’s
feet: a shield, a sword, and a spear.
The surviving fragment of the Samson panel measures 214 x 141 cm.10 The
mosaic is oriented towards the east, meaning the figures would be perceived as “right
side up” when observed from the nave looking towards the western wall, but would be
upside down if viewed from the vantage point of the benches along the western wall. The
synagogue’s tesserae are primarily limestone, with some marble additions in the western
aisle. The excavators identified twenty-two hues of tesserae: black, white, blue-gray,
gray-black, 2 shades each of red, gray, and beige, three shades of yellow, four of brown,
and five shades of pink. The Samson mosaic used an average of 169 tesserae per
decimeter squared for the human figures, 156 tesserae per dm2 in the guilloche border,
and 166 tesserae per dm2 for the white, horizontal rows making up the background.11
During the second season of excavation, Dr. Jodi Magness, of the University of
North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and her team uncovered the first of four mosaic fragments in
the eastern aisle of the late fourth- or early fifth-century synagogue at Horvat Huqoq.12
The village is located in the Eastern Galilee, three kilometers northwest of the Sea, and
only five kilometers away from Khirbet Wadi Hamam. The site has a long history––from
roughly 3000 BCE until 1948 CE, and with a Jewish settlement from c.1275 BCE until
c.1350 CE.13 The monumental synagogue was constructed at the end of the fourth century
or the beginning of the fifth century, and although the excavations are far from complete,
10
Leibner and Miller, “A Figural Mosaic in the Synagogue at Khirbet Wadi Hamam,” 249.
11
Shulamit Miller and Uzi Leibner, 'The Synagogue Mosaics,' in Khirbet Wadi Hamam: A Roman-Period
Village and Synagogue in the Lower Galilee, ed. Uzi Leibner, Jerusalem (forthcoming).
12
Grey and Magness, “Finding Samson in Byzantine Galilee,” 16.
13
“Huqoq Timeline” http://huqoqexcavationproject.org/about-huqoq/
4
four independent mosaic scenes have already been discovered in the eastern aisle.14 Two
of those scenes are from the story of Samson and depict Samson Carrying the Gates of
Gaza [see Fig. 2], and Samson and the Foxes [See Fig. 3].
Samson Carrying the Gates of Gaza is located along the eastern aisle of the
synagogue, near the south entrance and very close to the bema [Fig. 11]. It is oriented
towards the west, mirroring the orientation of the Wadi Hamam mosaics, and ensuring
that they would have been “right side up” when viewed from the nave. The mosaic
depicts a scene from Judges 16: 2-3, in which Samson foils a murderous plot against him
by lifting the gates in which his enemy hid out of the ground and carrying them away.
The mosaic fragment shows the upper portion of Samson, including his head, neck,
damaged left shoulder, torso, and hands, which hold aloft the gates of Gaza—the climax
of this episode in Samson’s life. The majority of the mosaic is focused on Samson
himself, however in the bottom corner is another figure of a horse and his rider
apparently fleeing from Samson. This figure (as well as the gates) provides a scale for the
image, and therefore it is clear that Samson is depicted as a giant. The scene is
surrounded by a triple guilloche border and is constructed from an average of 152–178
tesserae per dm2 on a white background. The tesserae themselves are mostly limestone in
various shades of pinks, white, blue-gray, yellow-ochre, reds, and black.15
To the north of Samson Carrying the Gates of Gaza is another scene from
Samson’s life, Judges 15: 4-5. Oriented towards the nave as well, this more heavily
fragmentary scene depicts Samson and the Foxes, in which he destroys the grains and
14
Two of which were uncovered in 2012, and two in 2013 Excavation reports.
Magness et al, “Huqoq and its Synagogue Mosaics,” 340-341.
15
Magness and Britt, et al, “Huqoq and its Synagogue Mosaics,” 348-349.
5
agricultural stores of the Philistines by tying together 150 pairs of foxes with a lit torch
between them. Only Samson’s partial torso and thighs are preserved, and two pairs of
foxes with torches also survive—recreating the apex of this story, as well as condensing
it into one scene. Again rendered as a giant, Samson is wearing the same costume as in
the previous scene. To the left of Samson, are two incomplete pairs of foxes set against a
white background with red torches tied between them. Samson, as a giant, was created
with larger tesserae, measuring between 149 and 179 tesserae per dm2, while the foxes
consist of smaller tesserae, averaging 239 per dm2.16 As in the Samson Carrying the
Gates of Gaza mosaic, the scene is constructed by tesserae in shades of white and cream,
reds and pinks, blue, blue-grays, browns, grays, and black.
The story of Samson comes from the Book of Judges, chapters 13–16. Samson
was born to a previously barren woman and was destined to “be a Nazarite to God from
the womb on. He shall be the first to deliver Israel from the Philistines.” (Judges 13:3-5)
Although Samson was born to save Israel from their enemy and therefore was divinely
imbued with great strength, his human vices often led him astray and ultimately caused
his death. Indeed, the three main narrative sections of Samson’s story hinge on his
problematic relationships with women: his wife, the prostitute from Gaza, and the
infamous Delilah.
Samson wished to take a Philistine wife despite his mother and father pleading
with him to take a Jewish one (Judges 14:3). However, Samson was insistent and chose a
woman from Timnah as his wife. On his way down to Timnah, he came across a lion and
“tore him asunder with his bare hands as one might tear a kid asunder.” (Judges 14:6)
16
Ibid., 349.
6
One year later, he came across the corpse of the same lion, and betraying his Nazarite
vows by defiling his pure body through touching a corpse, took the honey from the
beehive residing in the lion’s corpse.17 After this episode, Samson and his wife held a
seven-day marriage feast with thirty Philistines in attendance. Samson proposed an
impossible riddle to them, promising a prize of thirty sets of clothes if they produced the
correct answer: “Out of the eater came something to eat/ Out of the strong came
something sweet.” The answer, the lion, although clear to the reader of the biblical story,
was impossible for the Philistines to answer, as they did not know of Samson’s
interaction with the lion and the bees. However, Samson’s wife betrayed him by telling
her kinsmen the answer. Angered and with wounded pride, Samson went down to
Ashkelon, and killed thirty men in order to pay his debt.
Soon after this disastrous marriage feast, Samson’s wife left him for one of his
wedding companions; upon finding this out, Samson exacted his revenge by catching
three hundred foxes, tying a lit torch between each pair and set them running through
their grain fields and storage. (Judges 15:4-5) After this, the Philistines demanded
Samson to be turned over as a prisoner, resulting in Samson smiting one thousand
Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. After this feat of strength, Samson grew weak with
thirst, beseeching God: “You have given your servant this great victory. Must I now die
17
According to Numbers 6: 1-21, a Nazarite is one who voluntarily takes a vow of separation to live a lie
dedicated to God. There are three restrictions imposed upon the Nazarite: (1) he may not drink wine, or
anything made from grapes; (2) he may not cut the hair on his head; and (3) he may not touch the dead.
For more about Nazarites:
Stuart Chepey, Nazirites in Late Second Temple Judaism: A Survey of Ancient Jewish Writings, the New
Testament, Archaeological Evidence, and Other Writings from Late Antiquity, (Leiden: Brill, 2005).
7
of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” (Judges 15:18) God answered his
prayer and Samson regained his strength.
After returning to his tribe to lead them for twenty years, a part of the story that
was told in one short line, Samson visited a prostitute in Gaza, a trip that almost resulted
in his death. In fact, only his prodigal strength saved him, as he thwarted his would-be
attackers by pulling out of the ground the city gates in which they hid. (Judges 16: 2-3)
Soon after this incident, Samson met and began a relationship with Delilah, which led to
his ultimate demise. The Philistines asked Delilah to betray Samson who, after much
prodding, confided in her that it is his uncut hair that tied him to God and imbued him
with his physical strength. After Delilah cut seven locks of his hair while Samson was
passed out from drink, thus draining him of his strength, the Philistine soldiers gouged
out his eyes and took him to Gaza. As they tied him between two pillars of their temple to
celebrate his defeat, Samson called out, “O Lord God! Please remember me, and give me
strength just this once, O God, to take revenge of the Philistines if only for my two eyes.”
(Judges 16:28) With his renewed great strength, Samson cried, “Let me die with the
Philistines!” and brought down the entire temple, “slaying more people as he died than
the number he killed while alive.” (Judges 16:30) And through this excessively violent
act of destruction, the Israelites were freed from the Philistines.
Why would the story of Samson have been depicted in the synagogues of Wadi
Hamam and Huqoq in the manner that it was, and how does the proximity of these sites
illuminate this question? These are the questions upon which this thesis is based and will
attempt to answer. While the initial report of the Khirbet Wadi Hamam excavation did
suggest that the mosaic depicted Samson Smiting the Philistines with the Jawbone of an
8
Ass, it was not until the 2012 discovery of the Samson mosaic at Huqoq that the
identification of both figures was solidified. In this way, the two mosaics and synagogues
are inextricably linked; they help to define one another.18 It is the goal of this thesis to
add to the scholarship already undertaken by establishing the relationship between the
communities at Wadi Hamam and Huqoq as a way to better understand the local choices
involved in depicting Samson in their mosaic programs.
In order to accomplish this goal, this thesis is divided into six chapters, inclusive
of this introduction and a conclusion. The second chapter explores the previous
scholarship on the sites and mosaics of Wadi Hamam and Huqoq, as well as the
scholarship on mosaic art in Palestine generally.19 I will also place these synagogues
within the general trends of synagogue scholarship in Palestine. Finally, I will outline the
methodology with which I will analyze the mosaics of Wadi Hamam and Huqoq, which
draws heavily from post-colonial theorists such as Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, and Chris
Gosden.20 The third chapter examines the site of Horvat Huqoq, detailing the history of
the site, its synagogue and mosaics, and their historical context. Chapter four follows the
same structure as the previous chapter, but for the site of Khirbet Wadi Hamam. Chapter
five will bring both of the sites together to analyze the connection between the villages of
Huqoq and Wadi Hamam as evidenced through their mosaic choice; an analysis of how
18
Matthew Grey, “ ‘The Redeemer to Arise from the House of Dan’: Samson, Apocalypticism, and
Messianic Hopes in Late Antique Galilee,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 44 (2013): 553-555.
19
I would like to note that my use of the term Palestine to identify the location in question is a historical
choice referring to the Late Roman province of Syria Palaestina, a region that includes parts of modern-day
Israel, Turkey, Lebanon, and Syria.
20
Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Random House Inc, 1978).
Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994).
Chris Gosden, Archaeology and Colonialism: Cultural Contact from 500 BC to the Present (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2004).
9
the different uses of synagogue space and physical location of the mosaics effected their
significance and the experience of viewing them; and finally a discussion of why Samson
was important to the communal identity of both villages. Through a comparative study
grounded in both art historical and archaeological discourse, I argue that these two
communities were in dialogue with one another, forming a bond that asserts a distinct
local, Galilean Jewish identity. Further, I will argue that this local Galilean Jewish
identity embraced imported, foreign, elite artistic styles in order to construct elite
networks and assert their worldly pretentions.
10
Chapter 2
JEWISH MOSAICS: A NEW APPROACH
Previous Scholarship
The scholarship surrounding the Huqoq and Wadi Hamam mosaics is limited in
both quantity and in their focus on the religious interpretation of the imagery—a
methodology in line with the majority of research on synagogue floor mosaics of Late
Roman and Early Byzantine period Galilean and Palestinian synagogues.21 This section
will first discuss the limited historiography of the Wadi Hamam and Huqoq Samson
mosaics, and then will discuss that scholarship within the context of more general
scholarship on Judaism, synagogues, and synagogue mosaics in Late Antiquity and Early
Byzantium.
Only three scholars have written extensively about the Wadi Hamam mosaics:
Uzi Leibner (the director of the Khirbet Wadi Hamam excavations), Shulamit Miller
(who works with Leibner), and Rina Talgam.22 In a 2010 appendix to their preliminary
21
See for example Steven Fine, Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World: Towards a New Jewish
Archaeology, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
Grey, “Samson, Apocalypticism, and Messianic Hopes in Late Antique Galilee,” 553-589.
Levine, Visual Judaism in Late Antiquity.
22
Rina Talgam, Mosaics of Faith: Floors of Pagans, Jews, Samaritans, Christians, and Muslims in the Holy
Land. (Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi Press and The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2014).
11
excavation report, Leibner and Miller wrote the first interpretation of the Wadi Hamam
synagogue mosaics.23 They begin by describing the mosaic in technical, field-based
detail, naming it “Panel 11: the battle scene.”24 Leibner and Miller note several details in
composition and representation which they describe as recalling Roman and Byzantine
representational strategies, such as the grasping of hair to represent slaying and
submission, blood streaming from wounds, the depiction of cavalry men, and the Roman-
style of tunic worn by the figures.25 After dismissing alternative interpretations, the
authors identify the mosaic as representing Samson Smiting the Philistines with the
Jawbone of an Ass.
Leibner and Miller dismiss the possibility of the mosaic being a depiction of Og,
as in the Biblical story the giant king loses to the Israelites, and in the Wadi Hamam
mosaic, the giant is clearly emerging victorious.26 The possibility of the mosaic
illustrating the Battle of David and Goliath is significantly more plausible as it was a
frequent motif in both Jewish and Christian art, including in the fifth-century synagogue
floor mosaic at Meroth.27 However, as Leibner and Miller point out, there are two major
obstacles to the interpretation of this mosaic as a depiction of David and Goliath: (1) the
multitude of figures when the Biblical account emphasizes that the battle was a duel
between the two principal figures, and (2) in this mosaic, the giant (who would represent
Goliath) is clearly winning the fight.28 Therefore, Leibner and Miller introduce the most
23
Leibner and Miller, “A Figural Mosaic in the Synagogue at Khirbet Wadi Hamam.”
24
Ibid., 249.
25
Ibid., 249-251.
26
Ibid., 252.
27
Ibid., 252.
28
Ibid., 256.
12
likely interpretation of the mosaics: Samson Smiting the Philistines with the Jawbone of
an Ass.
Leibner and Miller draw on iconographic parallels of the scene in Christian
sources, specifically citing the Via Latina Catacombs in Rome, [Fig. 12] and Middle
Byzantine illuminated manuscripts such as the ninth-century copy of the Homilies of
Gregory of Nazianzus (Paris gr. 510) [Fig. 13] to posit a common iconographic source for
the late third-century synagogue floor mosaic, the late fourth-century catacomb wall
paintings, and the ninth-century illuminated manuscript.29 While this list of iconographic
parallels unfortunately does not include any works from a Jewish context, I do not
believe that this negates Leibner and Miller’s interpretation of the mosaic as Samson.30
However, Leibner and Miller do not suggest a reason for the inclusion of Samson beyond
the fact that he was a Biblical figure and might have contributed to a theme of salvation
in the decorative program.31 Additionally, by only including Christian iconographic
examples, the authors suggest (perhaps subconsciously) that Samson would have
resonated with, and been used by, Jewish and Christian communities in the same manner.
This seems very unlikely to be the case, not the least due to basic doctrinal differences
between the two religions.
Leibner and Miller stated that the primary goal of the excavation was not to
analyze the mosaics’ significance but to clarify the dating of such synagogues.32 Leibner
concluded that the site of Khirbet Wadi Hamam was occupied from the first century BCE
29
Ibid., 256.
30
Unfortunately, very few images of Samson in Jewish art exist, although a few are known, including a belt
with Samson wrestling a lion currently at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, MD.
31
32
13
through the late fourth or early fifth century CE, with a flourishing in the late third
century, at which point the Middle Roman period monumental building was renovated
into the synagogue with the floor mosaics.33 This timeline of settlement supports the
claims Leibner made in his Ph.D. dissertation and subsequent book based on that same
Eastern Galilee Survey, although some scholars disagree those conclusions.34 Given that
the focus of the excavation and the subsequent reports, the mosaics have not been fully
researched nor their significance fully explored. I hope to add to the work begun by
Leibner and Miller in this thesis with a stronger focus on the mosaics themselves.
As previously mentioned, the discovery of the Samson mosaics at Huqoq
reinforced the identification of the “battle scene” in Wadi Hamam as Samson, and thus
linked the two villages and excavation projects.35 However, the identification of their
giant figures as Samson is one of the only points on which Leibner and Magness agree.
These scholars fervently debate with one another on the dating of Galilean synagogues
and the question of a “Galilean crisis” beginning in the third century. In general, Magness
proposes later dates for the synagogues while Leibner posits dates in the second and third
centuries.36 Magness has thus disagreed with Leibner’s dating of Wadi Hamam, citing her
33
34
Uzi Leibner, Settlement and History in Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Galilee: An Archaeological
Survey of the Eastern Galilee, (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009).
Magness disagrees with him most vocally
35
36
Uzi Leibner, “Settlement Patterns in the Eastern Galilee: Implications Regarding the Transformation of
Rabbinic Culture in Late Antiquity,” in Jewish Identities in Antiquity: Studies in Memory of Menahem
Stern, ed. Lee I. Levine and Daniel R. Schwartz (Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 269-295.
Jodi Magness, “Did Galilee Experience a Settlement Crisis in the Mid-Fourth Century?” in Jewish
Identities in Antiquity: Studies in Memory of Menahem Stern, ed. Lee I. Levine and Daniel R. Schwartz
(Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 296-312.
Uzi Leibner, “The Settlement Crisis in the Eastern Galilee during the Late Roman and Early Byzantine
Periods: Response to Jodi Magness,” in Jewish Identities in Antiquity: Studies in Memory of Menahem
Stern, ed. Lee I. Levine and Daniel R. Schwartz (Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 314-319.
14
own analysis of the pottery remains, and positing a fourth-century terminus post quem for
the construction of the synagogues and the creation of the mosaics.37 Karen Britt, the
Huqoq excavation’s mosaics expert, suggests a fifth-century date for the Wadi Hamam
mosaics on the basis of stylistic considerations.38 Both Magness’s and Britt’s suggested
dating contradicts Leibner’s proposed timeline of occupation for Wadi Hamam,
according to which, occupation of the site ended in the late fourth or early fifth century.
However, I do not believe that this study is the proper place to take a stance on this
debate. Regardless of the specific dating of either synagogue mosaic, these spaces, and
the art within them, were viewed, and had an impact, well beyond the year of their
creation. Moreover, as will be discussed below, there was almost certainly contact
between the villages and they would have been aware of the other.39 Therefore, the
connection between the villages and the stylistic choices made, which will be discussed
in detail in chapter five, remains valid regardless of the precise dating of the mosaics.
The other major scholarly work to include the Wadi Hamam mosaics is Rina
Talgam’s recent book Mosaics of Faith: Floors of Pagans, Jews, Samaritans, Christians,
and Muslims in the Holy Land.40 This book is a wide-ranging survey of mosaic
pavements in Palestine from the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad, and Early
Abbasid Empires and therefore ranges from the second century BCE to the eighth century
CE. Additionally, Talgam does not limit her study to one religious group and includes
pagan, Jewish, Christian, Samaritan, and Islamic mosaics. This monumental undertaking
37
Magness, “Did Galilee Experience a Settlement Crisis in the Mid-Fourth Century?” 296-312.
38
Magness, et al, “Huqoq and its Synagogue Mosaics,” 350.
39
Eric M. Meyers and Mark A. Chancey, Alexander to Constantine: Archaeology of the Land of the Bible,
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 261-262.
40
Talgam, Mosaics of Faith.
15
sets out to demonstrate how these mosaics constructed overarching ethnic, cultural, and
religious identities, which in turn informs the visual expressions of the three major
monotheistic religions.41 Importantly, Talgam agrees with Leibner’s dating of the
synagogue, as well as its abandonment in the second half of the fourth century.42
However, she disagrees with Leibner’s interpretation of the scene as that between
Samson and the Philistines and instead identifies the scene as the struggle between David
and the giant Goliath.43 Talgam proposes this interpretation on the basis of little stated
evidence, and does not address the iconographic inconsistencies with this identification.
It is unlikely that this scene was meant to portray the battle between David and Goliath as
that struggle is depicted nearly exclusively as a struggle between those two characters
only. Additionally, the giant figure appears to be winning the battle in the Wadi Hamam
mosaic, which is antithetical to the David and Goliath story.
To end the Wadi Hamam mosaic section in her book, Talgam briefly compares
them to the Huqoq Samson mosaics, stating that their style, composition, and technique is
similar between the two synagogues. Based on that comparison as well as mosaic from
the synagogues of Hammath Tiberias [see Fig. 4] and Meroth [Fig. 14], she concludes
this section by suggesting that the inclusion of figurative panels on the floor was simply a
general phenomenon during this time period.44 It is problematic that Talgam does not
suggest other far more probable interpretations to the figural mosaics at Wadi Hamam
and only places the mosaics within her idea of a progression of stylistic development in
41
Talgam, Mosaics of Faith, xii-xvi.
42
Ibid,, 260.
43
Ibid., 260.
44
Ibid.,, 260-264.
16
Palestinian synagogue mosaics.45 By not discussing the intricacies of these mosaics,
Talgam displaces the Wadi Hamam mosaics from their local context to fit a wider theory
that does not take local choices and interests into account; in fact, by categorizing these
populations as Jews, Christians, Samaritans, Muslims and Pagans, Talgam assumes that
these were homogenous groups who would understand and desire the same material
culture, which seems highly unlikely. Overall, the historiography of the Wadi Hamam
mosaics is understandably limited, and has thus far has mainly been utilized to try to
bolster theories or ideas previously posited by the authors, and have not yet been studied
in their own right. This thesis will consider the Wadi Hamam mosaics from a more art
historical perspective, focusing on questions of technique and style, as well as in
comparison with the Samson mosaics from Huqoq.
The only scholars who have thus far published work on the Huqoq mosaics are
members of the Huqoq Excavation Project team: Jodi Magness, Matthew Grey, and
Karen Britt.46 Magness began this excavation with two primary goals: to clarify the
scholarly debate over the chronology of synagogues in the Galilee, and to excavate a
portion of the surrounding village to establish a context for the Huqoq synagogue
specifically.47 Like Wadi Hamam, finding mosaic floors was not the primary aim or focus
of the Huqoq excavations. Grey and Magness collaborated on the article “Finding
Samson in the Byzantine Galilee: the 2011-2012 Archeological Excavations at Huqoq,”
45
Talgam, Mosaics of Faith, 260-264.
46
Magness and Britt, et al., “Huqoq and its Synagogue Mosaics,” 337-355.
Grey and Magness, “Finding Samson in Byzantine Galilee,” 1-30.
47
Grey and Magness, “Finding Samson in Byzantine Galilee,” 11. Magness’s third goal was to “preserve
the history of the pre-1948 village of ‘Yaquq by excavating a portion of it and by interviewing the
descendants of the village’s last inhabitants.”
17
which undertook a messianic and apocryphal reading of the Samson mosaics that is
expanded upon in Grey’s article ““The Redeemer to Arise from the House of Dan”:
Samson, Apocalypticism, and Messianic Hopes in Late Antique Galilee.”48 Grey suggests
that the reason for the inclusion of Samson in the mosaics of Huqoq and Wadi Hamam
lay in an increase of messianic hopes and apocalyptic thought amongst Galilean Jewish
communities during the Late Roman and Byzantine periods.49 Grey draws upon
contemporary liturgical texts, often known to us through Christian sources, and other
writings that suggest that some Jews viewed Tiberias as the location for eschatological
and messianic events, and indeed, it is the mosaics’ vicinity to Tiberias that Grey begins
his analysis.50
Jewish apocalypticism flourished during the Second Temple period, and many
scholars believe it declined after the destruction of the Temple and the failed Great
Revolt (66-73 CE), and then disappeared after the failed Bar Kohkba revolt (132-135
51
CE). However, Grey cites recent research that brings to light a continued preoccupation
with an apocalyptic worldview from the late Roman period until the early Islamic
period.52 However, there were also contemporary sources that ignore, downplay, and
even discourage apocalyptic and messianic thought. Grey does not give a reason or
evidence as to why these particular pro-messianic and –apocalyptic sources might have
48
49
Grey, “Samson, Apocalypticism, and Messianic Hopes in Late Antique Galilee,” 557.
50
Ibid., 557.
51
John C. Reeves, Trajectories in Near Eastern Apocalyptic: A Postrabbinic Jewish Apocalypse Reader
(Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature) 2005.
52
18
related specifically to the site of Huqoq other than the fact that Biblical figures, including
Samson, were sometimes used to promote the hope of a future redemption of Israel.53
Grey makes a very solid argument for a continued messianic and apocryphal
tradition in the Late Antique and Early Byzantine period and for the possible inclusion of
Samson in that tradition, and I certainly agree with him that this might have influenced
the mosaics of Wadi Hamam and Huqoq. However, these sources, as well as the Jewish
sources cited, were a product of, and circulated within, the scholarly circles of Tiberias,
in particular amongst the rabbis, and therefore, are problematic when it comes to
explaining the choice to include Samson in the mosaic decoration of a local village
synagogue—a very different social and cultural context than the city of Tiberias.54 Grey
makes the claim that for Galilean Jews “who saw themselves as being under foreign
occupation,” and who lived in an atmosphere of nationalism and messianic expectation,
the depiction of Samson fighting the Philistines would have strongly resonated with
them.55 However, as other scholars have pointed out, despite increasing Roman and
Christian presence, the Galilee remained predominantly Jewish and the Patriarchate
continued to exercise fairly strong autonomy during the Late Roman and Early Byzantine
periods.56 Despite the strong arguments put forth by Grey, I do not think his article fully
contextualizes the Huqoq Samson mosaics. Instead, he uses them more as an illustration
for his wider argument regarding apocalypticism in the Galilee. My approach to these
53
Ibid., 564-567.
54
Ibid.,564-567.
cf. Hayim Lapin, Rabbis as Romans: The Rabbinic Movement in Palestine, 100-400 CE (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2012).
55
56
Lee I. Levine, “The Patriarchate and the Ancient Synagogue” in Jews, Christians, and Polytheists in the
Ancient Synagogue, ed. Steven Fine (New York: Routledge), 87.
19
mosaics is very different than that of Grey. One of the main goals of this study is to
understand the mosaics as a local choice and from a local perspective, which I believe
will give us insight into the village of Huqoq itself.
The excavations that resulted in the discovery of both sets of Samson mosaics
were inspired by debates within the larger corpus of scholarship surrounding Judaism and
synagogues in Late Antiquity and Early Byzantium, in particular the chronology debate.57
And indeed, scholarship on synagogues from this period have always revolved around
debates such as the dating and chronology of Galilean synagogues and the role of Rabbis
and Patriarchs in synagogue decoration.58 The earliest scholarship on Palestinian
synagogues and their mosaics, coming out of a flourishing of interest in Near Eastern
archaeology post-World War I, was almost completely focused on the religious and
halakhic aspects of the mosaics and whether or not the rabbis permitted figural images.59
57
See: Leibner, “Settlement Patterns in the Eastern Galilee” 269-295.
Leibner, “The Settlement Crisis in the Eastern Galilee during the Late Roman and Early Byzantine Periods:
Response to Jodi Magness,” 314-319.
58
See: M. Avi-Yonah, Art in Ancient Palestine: Selected Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, The Hebrew
University, 1981).
Joseph M. Baumgarten, “Art in the Synagogue: Some Talmudic Views,” in Jews, Christians, and
Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue: Cultural Interaction During the Greco-Roman Period, ed. Steven
Fine (New York: Routledge, 1999), 71-86.
Gerald J. Blidstein, “The Import of Early Rabbinic Writings for an Understanding of Judaism in the
Hellenistic–Roman Period.” in Jewish Civilization in the Hellenistic–Roman Period, ed. by Shemaryahu
Talmon (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991) 64-72.
Steven Fine, Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World.
Lee I. Levine, “The Nature and Origin of the Palestinian Synagogue Reconsidered,” Journal of Biblical
Literature 115 (1996): 425-448.
Jodi Magness, “The Question of the Synagogue: The Problem of Typology,” in Judaism in Late Antiquity,
Part 3: Where We Stand: Issues and Debates in Ancient Judaism, Volume 4: The Special Problem of the
Synagogue, ed. A.J. Avery-Peck and J. Neusner (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 1-48.
Eric M. Meyers, “Ancient Synagogues in Galilee: Their Religious and Cultural Setting,” The Biblical
Archaeologist 43 (Spring 1980): 97-108.
David Milson, Art and Architecture of the Synagogue in Late Antique Palestine: In the Shadow of the
Church (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 18-30.
59
See: Sukenik, Ancient Synagogues in Palestine and Greece.
Heinrich Kohl and Carl Watzinger, Antike Synagogen in Galilaea (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs’sche
20
Several theories were proposed, with the most powerfully opposing being that between
Kitchener and Sukenik. Kitchener suggested that the Patriarchs, being under the influence
of the Roman emperors, were fully in control of the creation and decoration of the
synagogues, and thereby forced upon the congregation artworks that were insulting to
their traditional religious sensibility.60 Watzinger took up this view, but Sukenik
disagreed with them both, instead accounting for figural images by positing that
figurative art enjoyed periods of greater acceptance and greater disapproval throughout
Jewish history.61
This debate informed later scholarship on so-called “normative Judaism,” that is,
Judaism controlled by rabbinic authority, and its alternative, “non-rabbinic Judaism.”62
Blau and Goodenough were both dedicated to the study of non-rabbinic Judaism, which
they saw as flourishing during the period after the Destruction of the Temple in 70 CE,
when rabbis lost control. They labeled this period “Hellenistic Judaism,” and proposed
that it diminished when rabbis began to regain control in the Byzantine period.63 These
early scholars, despite their disagreements, all began with the underlying assumption that
Jewish art was inherently and only religious, even though many of them acknowledged
that synagogues were used for many other, non-religious functions.64 This understanding
likely stemmed from two biases or assumptions upon which the study of Jewish art was
Buchhandlung, 1916).
H.H. Kitchener, “Synagogues of Galilee,” Palestine Exploration Quarterly 10 (1878): 123-129.
Erwin R Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1988).
60
Kitchener, “Synagogues of Galilee,” 123.
61
Sukenik, Ancient Synagogues in Palestine and Greece, 64.
62
Fine, Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World, 35-46.
63
Ludwig Blau, “Early Christian Archaeology from the Jewish Point of View,” Hebrew Union College
Annual 3 (1926): 157-214.
Goodenough, Jewish Symbols, 116-170.
64
One of the earliest to do so is Sukenik, Ancient Synagogues in Palestine and Greece, 48-49.
21
founded: (1) the idea of the artless Jewish people, and (2) the Christocentric and Western
nature of the art historical discipline.
One of the most powerful and internalized biases in the study of Jewish art is that
Jews are widely thought to be “artless” despite this being disproven time and again.65
Steven Fine astutely suggested that the conception of Jews as artless stems from the
foundation of art historical discourse: “Not considered a “nation” in the sense meant by
nineteenth-century nationalism, the Jews were excluded from the national categories
upon which the history of art was constructed – and hence Judaism was intrinsically
artless.”66 In addition to the lack of nation Jews face, many point to the Second
Commandment’s injunction against the graven image as “proof” that Jews are and were a
completely aniconic religion. While this has ostensibly proven not to be true, scholars
such as Goodenough explained the use of figural decorations as being “non-rabbinic” or
Hellenistic Judaism, and therefore, against the aniconic norm.67 This bias against Jewish
art also derived from the Christocentric view of ancient Jewish art.
Many scholars have sought to understand Jewish art only as far as it provided the
foundation for and could elucidate early Christian art.68 Scholars often saw the synagogue
mosaics in Palestine as borrowing from, or a precursor to, Christian art—and it was in
that connection that their scholarly interest and intrinsic historical worth lay. This
preoccupation with religious significance and Christocentric mind set was seen in the
work of Sukenik, who was only interested in the mosaics he discovered within their
65
Kalman P. Bland, The Artless Jew: Medieval and Modern Affirmations and Denials of the Visual,
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 3.
66
67
Goodenough, Jewish Symbols, 24-26.
68
22
strictly Jewish religious context despite acknowledging outside influences from imperial
powers, and the multi-use of synagogue space; to Sukenik, only Jewish religious belief
could provide an answer as to what the mosaics “meant.”69 Although most specialists
today do not see Jewish art as unimportant or only important in regards to their
connection to Christianity, the tendency to place a religious or doctrinal significance on
the mosaics still dominates the field’s discourse. One such example of this is the
scholarship surrounding the Sepphoris synagogue mosaic.70 Steven Fine, only one of
many scholars to study this floor, declared that, “the Sepphoris floor, like all synagogue
appurtenances, is preeminently a liturgical object. Its iconography, drawing from a
tradition of synagogue art that was highly influenced by the iconographic possibilities of
late antique Christian art, was organized so as to complement and give visual expression
to the Biblically infused prayers, Scriptural reading, and homiletics of the synagogue.”71
This preoccupation with religious meaning, often juxtaposed or compared with Christian
liturgical practice and use of Old Testament images, is also seen in current debates on the
inclusion of Helios and the Zodiac in Galilean synagogues, as well as the scholarship
done thus far on the Wadi Hamam and Huqoq mosaics.72
This line of analysis, while important and a potentially very valuable tool for the
study of Jewish religious practice during this time period, tends to not take into account
the socio-cultural-political atmosphere surrounding the construction of the mosaics and
69
Sukenik, Ancient Synagogues in Palestine and Greece, 27-37; 61-78.
70
Shalom Sabar, “The Purim Panel at Dura: A Socio-Historical Interpretation,” in From Dura to
Sepphoris: Studies in Jewish Art and Society in Late Antiquity, ed. Lee I. Levine and Ze’ev Weiss
(Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2000), 158-159.
71
Fine, Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World, 189.
72
Jodi Magness, “Heaven on Earth: Helios and the Zodiac Cycle in Ancient Palestinian Synagogues,”
Dumbarton Oaks Papers 59 (2005): 1-52.
23
views them within a purely Judeo-Christian bubble. That is not to say that the research
undertaken by those great scholars is not valid or useful—in fact I am saying quite the
opposite. Great scholarship has been done on the synagogue mosaics that have been
excavated since the end of World War I, and these scholars have elucidated a period of
Jewish history that was virtually unknown before then. However, because of the base of
scholarship that we now have, scholars can begin thinking beyond the liturgical
significance or Biblical interpretation of the iconography and explore the complex status
of the Jews of Palestine. Viewed in contrast to their diasporic religious brethren, yet still
considered colonized and under foreign rule, the Jewish population of Palestine, and in
particular the Galilee, stood at a fascinating crossroad of past and present, East and West,
at once a center and a periphery. As this thesis will show, these conflicting social markers
and positions play out in powerful and purposeful ways in the stylistic choices of the
Samson synagogue mosaics at Wadi Hamam and Huqoq.
Methodology
The relatively limited scholarship on the Samson mosaics in the synagogues of
Huqoq and Wadi Hamam leave many questions to be answered and refined. My thesis
will attempt to add a new voice to this scholarship by approaching the mosaics from a
very different perspective. Analysis of these mosaics thus far has largely been in an
attempt to understand the apocryphal tendencies and messianic hopes in the Galilee
during the Late Roman and Early Byzantine periods, as well as an attempt to uncover the
24
kinds of liturgies that were occurring in the synagogue.73 My approach begins with and
focuses on the mosaics themselves and will address questions of artistic choice in the
style and techniques of the mosaics. Additionally, while Wadi Hamam and Huqoq are
often mentioned together, the connection between the two synagogues and villages has
not been properly analyzed. This is one of the main questions driving this project and will
hopefully shed light on larger questions of inter-village connections relating to communal
identities.
The most recent, and most exhaustive work on mosaic pavements in Palestine, as
mentioned previously, is Rina Talgam’s 2014 book, Mosaics of Faith: Floors of Pagans,
Jews, Samaritans, Christians, and Muslims in the Holy Land. While Talgam’s work is
undoubtedly important for this field, the methodology from which she works is nearly
opposite from the theories driving this project. Talgam asserts that Jews did not have
their own artistic style, and instead borrowed art forms and characteristics from the
cultural majority.74 This concept comes out of the idea of the “artless Jew” as discussed
above, which this thesis will work against, and also assumes a lack of authenticity and
agency on the part of the Jewish communities creating these artworks. Talgam
additionally subscribes to traditional center-periphery theory whereby the center or
“majority culture” dictates artistic style and motif, which then trickles down into the
periphery.75 Talgam’s work is thus a continuation of the predominant methodologies of
73
Magness et al., “Huqoq and its Synagogue Mosaics,” 337-355.
74
Talgam, Mosaics of Faith, 3.
75
Cf. Kent G. Lightfoot and Antoinette Martinez, “Frontiers and Boundaries in Archaeological
Perspective,” Annual Review of Anthropology 24 (1995): 471-492.
25
those scholars who came before her, inclusive of those pitfalls as outlined in the previous
section.
Instead of utilizing the methodologies of previous scholars, this thesis will
approach the mosaics from the perspective of postcolonial studies. Postcolonial theory
and scholarship developed in a post-World War II society in reaction to the expansive
empires of Western Europe, and was specifically associated with anti-colonial liberation
movements.76 Edward Said’s Orientalism, considered to be the foundational text for
postcolonial study, examines the construction of “the Orient” by western European
colonial authorities as an important part of their ideological colonial discourse.77
Specifically, the West constructed the East as Other, uncivilized and backwards, therefore
justifying their own imperial and colonial actions.78 Orientalism inspired many other
scholars in the 1980s to re-examine discourse on the Orient, to identify and deconstruct
the binaries and stereotypes created by the Western world and instead to emphasize the
interdependence of cultural and political developments between the colonies and the
colonizers.
Homi Bhabha was one of the most influential postcolonial scholars, and his ideas
about hybridity are essential to this paper.79 Bhabha argues that hybridity in cultural
forms is a fundamental element of the colonial encounter due to the “ambivalence of
colonial rule.”80 Bhabha suggests that colonies are inherently unstable and that
ambivalence created by the colonialist presence creates a liminal space in which hybrid
76
Jane Lydon and Uzma Z. Rizvi, “Introduction: Postcolonial and Archaeology,” Handbook of
Postcolonial Archaeology, 18.
77
Edward Said, Orientalism.
78
Ibid., 1-110.
79
Bhabha, The Location of Culture.
80
Ibid., 66-84.
26
cultural forms are created.81 Hybridity is thus a “displacement of value from symbol to
sign that causes the dominant discourse to split along the axis of its power to be
representative, authoritative.”82 Bhabha proposes that the importance of the presence of
the hybrid lays in its disavowal of colonial hegemony, rendering the presence of
colonialist authority not immediately visible.83 This conception of hybridity and the
revaluation of colonial hegemony resonated amongst archaeologists who were
dissatisfied with the traditional categorical binaries that did not fit the transcultural
objects discovered at sites of colonial encounter.84
Postcolonial theory, and especially Bhabha’s conception of hybridity, has
informed many archaeological theorists, among them Chris Gosden. Gosden’s work on
different types of colonialisms has largely informed this work, in particular his emphasis
on the central role of consumption and exchange of material objects in colonial
encounters. He argues that values are attached to material culture, and when these values
are created and appropriated, they become attractive to the elite in areas outside of the so-
called “center.” These materials are then consumed by the elites, while crucially retaining
the symbolic power reference to the “center culture,” but relinquishing the materials’
original context and meaning.85 These pieces of material culture thus often become
hybridized objects both visually and conceptually.
The type of colonialism Gosden describes as occurring in the middle ground or
through a shared cultural milieu is a useful lens to consider the cultural ramifications of
81
Ibid., 110-114.
82
Ibid.,113.
83
Ibid., 163.
84
Matthew Leibmann, “Introduction: The Intersections of Archaeology and Postcolonial Studies,” in
Archaeology and the Postcolonial Critique, 5.
85
Gosden, Archaeology and Colonialism, 41.
27
the multitude of foreign governments that controlled the predominantly Jewish
population of Palestine from the Hellenistic period through the Islamic period.86
Interestingly and problematically, previous scholars have often ignored the colonial
nature of Palestine when analyzing the mosaics found in synagogues. Although they used
terminology such as “Hellenistic,” “Classical,” and “Romanized” to describe the styles of
the artworks, they often do not explicitly question the validity of those terms in this
particular context, thus erasing local Jewish agency with regards to the visual vocabulary
they chose to enact.87
Ancient Palestine has not been fully integrated into the classification of “colony”
by previous scholars. Although acknowledging the control of the Greek and Roman
empires over Palestine, there is a tendency of seeing Palestinian Jewry as separate from
the Greco-Roman world in which they lived.88 This created an interesting dichotomy
between the study of Jewish communities in Palestine and Jewish communities in the
Diaspora. Scholars far more easily defined Diasporic Jews as colonized than Palestinian
Jews.89 Thus, although Palestine was indeed a Greco-Roman colony, scholars understood
it as, at once, the center of Judaism, and a periphery of the Greco-Roman imperial realm.
This scholarly tension exhibited itself in many ways. For example, scholars readily
accepted that the synagogue building was modeled after the Roman basilica, but the
86
Ibid., 41-113.
87
See for example, Avi-Yonah, Art in Ancient Palestine.
Sukenik, Ancient Synagogues in Palestine and Greece.
Ovadiah, Hellenistic, Roman and Early Byzantine Mosaic Pavements in Israel.
88
Sukenik, Ancient Synagogues in Palestine and Greece, 46-78.
89
Ibid,, 37-49.
28
mosaics found within that space were decidedly Jewish.90 In fact, early scholars did not
write about Palestinian Jewish art or practices as that of a colonized people—instead,
they were defined as “normative” Judaism and the diasporic communities were the ones
who were “colonized.”91
Instead of understanding Palestine, its Jewish communities, and their material
culture as occupying a geographic periphery and Judaism as a cultural and religious
periphery, as Talgam does, or ignoring the cultural impact of their colonizers, as Sukenik
and Avi-Yonah did, I suggest that the mosaics can best be understood as conscious
cultural hybrids. Palestine, and the Galilee in particular, was a culturally diverse place
where innovative cultural constructs could be created and transformed, and where the
local populace were full participants in the material culture of the Greco-Roman world92
Within this postcolonial framework, this thesis will focus on the autonomy of thought and
action of Jewish communities, and how they understood, utilized, and shaped the shared
cultural milieu of their colonizers to fit their specific needs. The Samson mosaics in the
synagogues at Huqoq and Khirbet Wadi Hamam are powerful examples of such
hybridization, which combined elements of Hellenistic and Roman visual traditions with
Jewish themes and motifs, resulting in a forceful cultural statement of their own power
and identity.
90
Ibid., 46.
91
This of course is not the case for all scholars, for example Talgam discusses the mosaics explicitly in
terms of “Hellenized” or “Romanized.”
92
Lightfoot and Martinez, “Frontiers and Boundaries in Archaeological Perspective,” 472.
29
Chapter 3
HORVAT HUQOQ: THE SITE AND THE SYNAGOGUE
Excavation History
The site of Horvat Huqoq has a fascinating and ancient history, dating back to the
Biblical era.93 The village lies three kilometers northwest of the Sea of Galilee, five
kilometers from the Late Roman village of Khirbet Wadi Hamam and about 12.5
kilometers north of the city of Tiberias. The site, as excavated thus far, includes a mikveh
(Area 4000), the remains of a residential complex (Area 2000), and the remains of a
monumental synagogue (Area 3000); it sits atop a moderate hill overlooking the Sea of
Galilee.94 [Fig. 15] The remains of the ancient synagogue are partly covered by the ruins
of the nineteenth or twentieth-century Arab village of Yakuk, which was inhabited until
1948 and bulldozed in 1968.95 The excavations of Huqoq began in the summer of 2011,
and are led by Dr. Jodi Magness of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Shua
Kisilevitz of the Israel Antiquities Authority is the assistant director of excavations, and
Dr. Matt Grey (Brigham Young University), and Dr. Chad Spigel (Trinity University) act
as area supervisors. Dr. Karen Britt was brought onto the team when the first mosaics
were uncovered in 2012 and has been the mosaics expert since.
93
94
Magness, et al., “Huqoq and its Synagogue Mosaics,” 327.
95
Jodi Magness, “Huqoq – 2011,” Hadashot Arkheologiyot: Excavations and Surveys in Israel 124
(2012):1.
30
Jodi Magness chose this site in 2011 to begin excavations largely due to the
evidence of a monumental synagogue from literary sources, as well as in preliminary
archaeological surveys carried out decades earlier, in the hope of confirming her re-
evaluation of the chronology of Galilean synagogue architecture.96 In fact the goals set
forth from the beginning of the project are entirely focused on chronology: “(1) to locate
and excavate…the synagogue building in order to establish its chronology; and (2) to
excavate two–three houses in the ancient village in order to provide a context for the
synagogue and as a basis for establishing a typology and chronology of the local Late
Roman and Byzantine pottery.”97 Magness disagrees with the classic chronology of
Galilean synagogue architecture, which suggests that the Roman basilica was used in the
96
Before the current archaeological excavations began, several early archaeological surveys suggested the
presence of a monumental synagogue at the site of Huqoq. C.R. Condor and H.H. Kitchener carried out the
first survey of the region in the 1870s-1880s for the Palestine Exploration Fund, and the subsequent report
was the earliest mention of Huqoq in archaeological discourse. While the survey was being carried out, the
village was still occupied by a small number of Muslim inhabitants, who lived among surface remains of an
ancient village, including scattered architectural fragments such as large ashlars and columns. After the
abandonment of the modern village and before it’s complete destruction, the Antiquities Inspector B.
Ravani surveyed the ancient remains in 1956-57. He collected pottery from the Early Bronze Age, Iron
Age, Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, and Medieval periods, suggesting a very long history of
occupation. In addition to the pottery remains, Ravani conducted limited excavations of the burial caves to
the north of the main site, the finds from which include three crude ossuaries dating from between the
Destruction of the Second Temple and the Bar Kokhba Revolt (c. 70-135 CE), early Roman pottery, oil
lamps, and a coin minted under Trajan, all of which suggested that the tombs were used during the first and
early second centuries. In addition to the surveys of Huqoq, Sheikh Nashi, a hill about four hundred meters
to the east of the village, was explored and the remains of a Hellenistic fortress and numerous agricultural
and water installations were discovered. Both Sheikh Nashi and Huqoq shared access to the perennial fresh
water spring, Ein Huqoq, used the surrounding agricultural lands, and both sites were occupied
contemporaneously during the Hellenistic period. While there seems to be some connection between the
two sites—some scholars have suggested that Sheikh Nashi was a military camp with Huqoq as a civilian
settlement—for now, the connection remains unclear.
After the destruction of the modern village in 1968, several Israeli archaeologists, including G.
Daryn, Y. Tepper and Y. Sharar, Z. Ilan, and U. Leibner, have conducted surveys. These surveys uncovered
agricultural installations, including wine and oil presses, and objects connected with mustard production;
architectural fragments and a lintel carved with a menorah; and over two hundred potsherds from the
Hellenistic through Byzantine periods. Given the preliminary reports from these archaeological surveys
from the 1980s, Huqoq promised to be an important site in the understanding of the history of Jews in the
Galilee, as well as an important exploration of Galilean synagogue architecture.
See: C.R. Conder and H.H. Kitchener, The Survey of Western Palestine, vol 1: Galilee (London 1881), 364-
65.
97
Magness, “Huqoq – 2011,” 1-2.
31
second and third centuries; the broad-house was then a transitional architectural form
used in the fourth century; and the apsidal basilica form was used in the Byzantine
period.98 When excavations began, coins were found in the undisturbed layer of building
chips in the foundation of the synagogue that date from 323 to 348 CE, and the pottery
types found date from the mid-third century to the early fifth century. Based on this
archaeological evidence, Magness has determined a terminus post quem of the late fourth
century for the synagogue’s construction.99
Archaeological evidence of early Jewish settlement in Huqoq is supported by an
assortment of literary sources. The earliest reference to Huqoq (‫ )חוּהקק‬is in Joshua 19:34,
where it is named as a village given to the tribe of Naphtali following the conquest of
Canaan by the Israelites; this suggests that Huqoq was occupied in the late Iron Age or
late Bronze Age.100 While there are no literary references to Huqoq from sources in the
late Second Temple period, archaeological remains suggest that it operated as a Jewish
agricultural village in the Late Hellenistic and Early Roman periods, and continued into
the Late Roman and early Byzantine periods. References to Huqoq (‫ )חיקוק‬appear again
in Rabbinic literature from the second to fifth century, including the Palestinian Talmud.
Further, the Palestinian Talmud mentions the name of one Rabbinic sage from the
98
Eric M. Meyers, “The Current State of Galilean Synagogue Studies,” in The Synagogue in Late Antiquity,
ed. Lee I. Levine (Philadelphia: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1987), 127-137.
While Magness is not the only scholar to disagree with this chronology, she is the first to set out to disprove
it through archaeological evidence.
Previous scholars have relied strongly on art historical and architectural developments in dating synagogues
in the Galilee, Magness takes a far more scientific approach—she contends that the only proper way to date
these buildings is by the archaeological deposits, specifically dateable pottery sherds and coins
99
Magness and Britt, “Huqoq and its Synagogue Mosaics,” 341-347.
Karen Britt has suggested a fifth century date based on the style of the mosaics.
100
Joshua 19:34: “The western boundary ran past Aznoth-tabor, then to Hukkuk, and touched the boundary
of Zebulun in the south, the boundary of Asher on the west, and the Jordan River on to east”
‫ושב הגבול ימה אזנות תבור ויצא משם חוקקה ופגע בזבלון מנגב ובאשר פגע מים וביהודה הירדן מזרח השמש׃‬
32
village, R. Hizkiyah of Huqoq, and mentions other villagers who would travel to
Tiberias, suggesting a connection between the village of Huqoq and the larger city.101
While the extent and nature of this connection is nearly impossible to ascertain from
these limited sources, it does suggest that Huqoq was a fairly prominent village and that
its inhabitants were involved in trade and social relations with other cities and villages.
Huqoq is not mentioned again in literary sources until accounts from medieval
Jewish pilgrims traveling to the Tomb of Habakkuk, and by this time, it seems that the
Jewish inhabitants of the village had abandoned the site; it was then resettled by a small
Muslim population who called the village Yakuk.102 It is not yet clear what drove the
Jewish population to abandon the village. However, there is evidence of robbing activity
in the synagogue’s south façade and bema area, such as concentrated burnt plaster and
ash.103 This could point to a violent event against the Jewish population that forced them
to leave Huqoq, but as the rubble collapse and other evidence of robbing was restricted
just to the area near the bema, it seems more likely that the destruction took place after
the Jewish population had vacated the village on their own. From this point on, Huqoq
was no longer a Jewish village and was subsequently occupied by the Mamluks or
Crusaders, the Ottomans, and the British Mandate until the village was demolished in
1968.104
101
Magness, “Huqoq and its Synagogue Mosaics,” 327-328.
102
The tomb of Habakkuk was a popular pilgrimage site for both Jews and Christians.
103
104
The village’s inhabitants during the Middle Ages reused the monumental synagogue for a public
building, the exact use of which is as yet unknown. Given the minimal evidence currently available, it is
not known exactly who occupied the village during the Middle Ages, but the Huqoq excavation team
suggests that it was either Crusader controlled or Mamluk controlled. During this phase of the building’s
occupation (12th/13th century) a cobble and plaster floor paved with mosaics was constructed above that of
the ancient synagogue. The Crusaders/Mamluks extended the synagogue’s east wall approximately one
33
From all of the archaeological, historical, and literary evidence, we can conclude
that the site of Huqoq was a Jewish agricultural village occupied in the Biblical period,
expanded in the Hellenistic period, and that it reached its zenith in the Late Roman and
Byzantine periods. For unknown reasons, Huqoq appears to have declined in the early
Islamic period and its Jewish population left the village around 1300, after which it
became the Muslim village of Yakuk. The site continued to be occupied in the Ottoman
era through the British Mandate period and was abandoned for the last time in 1948, to
remain uninhabited to this day.105
The Huqoq Synagogue Mosaics
The excavations at Huqoq are far from finished—in fact, only the eastern aisle has
been excavated and the northern extent of the wall has not yet been found. While it was
clear from literary and preliminary architectural evidence that a monumental synagogue
once stood in the village, the discovery of mosaics of this quality were not expected.106
Additionally, the fact that the mosaics in the aisle are figural makes the synagogue at
Huqoq stand out amongst the other monumental synagogues in the Galilee. The size of
meter to the south, where a new façade was constructed. The east wall was also extended, and the original
eastern wall of the synagogue was re-used as a bench. Finally, the entrance to the building was re-oriented
by creating a threshold in the eastern wall. The re-orientation of the building and its expansion could point
to any number of potential uses, including the possibility that it was converted into a Mamluk mosque;
however, at this time, as the identity of the inhabitants is still undetermined, any attempt at a conclusion is
simply conjecture. The next clear occupational period is from the 19th–early 20th-century Ottoman remains.
By this time, the monumental building was no longer in use, and was in fact in ruins and likely buried, as
the area was then an open courtyard area used for food preparation, as evidenced by the abundance of
tabuns (Ottoman ovens). The most recent level of occupation was in the 20th century, when the area that
once held the ancient synagogue was occupied by village housing. That village was abandoned in 1948 and
bulldozed by the Israeli army in 1968.
Magness, et al., “Huqoq and its Synagogue Mosaics,” 336-339.
105
Magness, et al. “Huqoq and its Synagogue Mosaics,”328.
106
Jodi Magness, Shua Kisilevitz, Matthew Grey, Chad Spigel and Brian Coussens, “Huqoq – 2012,”
Hadashot Arkeologiyot: Excavations and Surveys in Israel 125 (2013).
34
the synagogue and the quality of the mosaics suggest that Huqoq was a wealthier and
more influential village than previously expected.107 Some of the most unexpected
discoveries thus far have been the mosaics depicting the exploits of Samson, a motif only
seen in one other Jewish context—the synagogue at Khirbet Wadi Hamam.108
Entering the synagogue from the southern entrance, the first mosaic one would
encounter in the eastern aisle is a scene from Judges 16: 2-3 in which Samson foils the
Gazites’ plot to kill him:
The Gazites [learned] that Samson had come there, so they gathered and lay in
ambush for him in the town gate the whole night…but Samson lay in bed only till
midnight. At midnight he got up, grasped the doors of the town gate together with
the two gateposts, and pulled them out along with the bar. He placed them on his
shoulders and carried them off to the top of the hill that is near Hebron.
A three-strand guilloche border surrounds the entire scene, suggesting that the multiple
scenes in the aisle were individuated and meant to be read as distinct entities. Set against
a white background, Samson, depicted here as a giant, carries the gates of Gaza without
the faintest trace of strain on his face. In fact, his face recalls those of idealized
Hellenistic youths, with a round face, smooth skin, and large eyes.109 His heavy brow
frames his large eyes, which are looking off to his right, suggesting movement in order
for Samson to do away with the gates and the would-be murderers inside of them.
Directly below this fragment of the mosaic lies an additional fragment showing the lower
part of Samson’s torso, and more of his costume. He wears a white tunic with a red cloak
107
Additionally, fragments of marble objects were discovered in the village in the 2014 season.
108
The Wadi Hamam mosaic was definitively identified as Samson only after the Huqoq mosaics were
discovered.
109
R.R.R. Smith, Hellenistic Sculpture: A Handbook, (London: Thames and Hudson, 1991).
35
and a thick red belt around his waist. His costume is simple, remaining within the
mosaic’s color palette of shades of blues, reds, whites, and black.
The gates consist of two parallel towers of three bricks in width; the white bricks
and darker blue bricks interact with one another to create a purposeful sense of design
and three-dimensionality; the white bricks down the center recall light hitting the surface,
leaving the rest of the rounded tower in shadow. The towers are topped with several
projections in red tesserae, likely meant to depict defensive crenellations on the parapet,
emphasizing the violent reality of the scene. The gate itself lies between the two towers,
crowned by an arch. The doors exhibit perhaps the greatest amount of detail in the
utilization of varied shades of colored tesserae to create depth and the specific decorative
design of the coffered doors. While there is some damage within the gate, it is the only
place in the mosaic, except for Samson’s eyes, in which all three colors of tesserae were
used—blue/grey, red, and white. The amount of attention and detail given to the gates of
the city point to the importance of the gates themselves, perhaps as a way to ensure that
the story is understood by the audience.
The monochrome color palette of Samson and the gates he carries creates a direct
and undeniable visual link between the architectural structure and Samson. Compared to
the gates, Samson’s features are softer, more round and organic—only his neck follows
the straight verticality of the gates. This juxtaposition and connection between inorganic
stone architecture and the very alive form of Samson (although also made of stones in
this case) emphasizes the strength of Samson as a more powerful protective agent than
city walls.
36
Samson’s head spans across the entire width of the gates and even onto the
towers. His short, wild hair blends almost seamlessly into the color of the gates, and is
unexpectedly short as this episode precedes his ruinous haircut; if strictly following the
biblical story, Samson’s hair should be much longer. The short-haired Samson in fact
recalls visual traditions of depicting hair from the Hellenistic period, although with a
lessened amount of texture.110 Samson’s head is rounded and flattened by the lack of
highlighting tesserae to model the face, which in turn emphasizes the T-zone of his face:
eyes, eyebrows, and nose. The mouth nearly disappears into his skin tone, and a slightly
darker red stone line along his jaw line differentiates his chin from his neck. Samson’s
hands lack modeling and lie heavily upon the Gates of Gaza. No strain is evidenced in
any part of his body that are still visible; his face is calm, betraying no emotion or
physical strain and his hands softly hold aloft the gates. All of these visual cues are
purposeful strategies deployed to draw attention to Samson: the monochrome and flat
nature of the mosaic focuses the viewer’s eyes on Samson himself.
Below Samson, a rider with a horse stares back at him, facing him, but seeming to
shy away from the giant at the same time, as he rears back with his head pulled back by
the rider. The horse stares at Samson with wide eyes and open mouth, showing the only
emotion in the entire scene: fear. The rider’s face is youthful and rounded, much like
Samson’s, but his hair appears more coiled and textured compared to Samson’s locks.111
The young rider is draped in what appears to be a paludamentum, a cloak or cape
110
Other examples of this scene in the Octateuchs , for example the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianus and
in Hellenistic depictions of the Gauls, for example the Capitoline Dying Gaul.
Weitzmann, Kurt and Massimo Bernabó, The Byzantine Octateuchs. Volume II of The Illustrations in the
Manuscripts of the Septuagint, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999).
Smith, Hellenistic Sculpture, 99-104.
111
Indeed these seem to be more reminiscent of Roman depictions of hair.
37
fastened to one shoulder by a fibula, worn by ancient Roman military commanders.112
Interestingly, no such rider was mentioned in the biblical text. The text only states that,
“He placed them [the city gates] on his shoulders and carried them off to the top of the
hill that is near Hebron.” So then, why might these extra characters be present? It is
possible that this scene, in its original entirety, was in fact a conflation of two parts of
Samson’s story, perhaps the second being Samson killing the Philistines with the
jawbone of an ass, which is depicted with a similar rider in the mosaics at Wadi Hamam.
Unfortunately, the mosaic is too damaged for scholars to know what the remainder of the
scene was. However, another possibility is that the mosaic was drawing on a different
textual tradition than the Bible. The Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum by Pseudo-Philo is a
first-century CE text that is part of the tradition of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.113 This
particular text tells the history of Israel from Abraham to David and interweaves biblical
texts with legendary expansions of those stories.114 Chapter 43 recalls and expands upon
the exploits of Samson, and the Gates of Gaza scene reads as follows:
And when Samson arose at night and saw the city locked up, he said, “Behold
now those fleas have locked me up in their own city, and now the Lord will be
with me, and I will go out through their gates and attack them.” And he came and
put his left hand beneath the bar of the gate, and he took down the gate from the
wall by shaking it. One part of it he kept in his right hand for a shield; the other he
put on his shoulders. And he carried it because he had no sword, and he pursued
the Philistines with it and killed 25,000 men with it. And he took up everything
that made up the gate and brought them up to the mountain.115
112
Magness and Britt, et al., “Huqoq and its Synagogue Mosaics,” 348-349.
113
This dating is debated amongst scholars, but it is generally accepted that the first century is accurate,
Pseudo-Philo, Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, trans. D.J. Harrington, in The Old Testament
Pseudepigrapha Volume 2: Expansions of the “Old Testament,” and Legends, Wisdom and Philosophical
Literature, Prayers, Psalms, and Odes, Fragments of Lost Judeo-Hellenistic Works, ed. James H.
Charlesworth (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1985), 297-377.
114
Pseudo-Philo, Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, 297.
115
Ibid., 357.
38
Thus, it is possible that this textual tradition, or the oral expansion upon which it was
derived, was known by this particular Jewish community and was part of the inspiration
for this detail. At this time however, it is not useful or even feasible to make a definitive
statement as to why the rider was included in this particular mosaic. As the excavations
continue, we can hope that more mosaics will be able to shed light on this enigmatic
detail.
Following the eastern aisle to the north, the next mosaic depicts the story from
Judges 15:1-5, in which Samson exacts retribution against the Philistines by tying three
hundred foxes together with lit torches and releasing them into their agricultural fields,
destroying all of their crops and agricultural stores. Two partial pairs of foxes can be seen
in the remaining mosaic fragment, with the large flaming torch rising between them. To
the right of the foxes is a fragment of a figure, which has been identified as Samson,
wearing Late Roman military garb. Adorning the white tunic is an orbiculus, the round
red and white geometric apotropaic symbol worn by Late Roman soldiers to protect them
from evil.116 The rest of his costume includes a white tunic with a red cloak, cinched at
the waist by a thick red belt. This costume is nearly identical to what remains of the one
in Samson Carrying the Gates of Gaza, although this time the detail of the orbiculus is
extant.
Set upon a white background, the red of the flaming torches and of Samson’s
cloak and belt become very visually dominant. The foxes are depicted not as small red
animals, as would perhaps be expected, but as gray-tan rodent-like creatures. From what
remains, the foxes appear to have been depicted symmetrically, as mirrors of one another.
116
Magness and Britt et al., “Huqoq and its Synagogue Mosaics, “ 349.
39
Against the colors of the background, the foxes do not stand out; their role in the story
and inclusion in the mosaic seems to be less important than the bright red flames that
stand between them. Although little of this particular mosaic scene remains, the costume
of Samson and the depiction of the foxes in relation to the flame indicate that the
importance of the story lay in Samson’s revenge on the Philistines. Overall, both of the
Samson mosaics at Huqoq are characterized by flat and linear figures with heavy
outlining in black and the minimal use of patches and strips of different colored tesserae
to suggest shadow or depth. Britt points out that these stylistic considerations point to a
very late fourth- or early fifth-century date for all of the mosaics thus far exposed.117
They also point to a purposeful focus on Samson as the active agent; it is his actions that
drive both scenes and the deliberate and striking frontality and flatness of the mosaic
directs the audience’s attention to Samson.
These mosaics, although extraordinary in their subject matter, were not the main
focus of the original artistic program in the Huqoq synagogue. Although the rest of the
synagogue has yet to be excavated, as the Samson mosaics are located in the eastern
aisle, and the main focus of mosaic pavements in other cases is in the central nave, one
can safely assume that these images were tangential to the decorations in the nave.118
Additionally, the mosaic’s mortar bed extends across the excavation square into the
baulk, suggesting that the mosaic covered the entire aisle even though the northern and
western limits have not yet been excavated.119 The synagogue building as a whole is
oriented to the south, towards Jerusalem, and therefore the bema would have been located
117
Magness and Britt, et al., “Huqoq and its Synagogue Mosaics,” 355.
118
For example, the Sepphoris synagogue included a floriated mosaic in its aisles, thus focusing attention
on the mosaics in the nave. This is quite typical for synagogues during this time period.
119
40
along the south wall. This would place the Samson mosaics, in particular Samson
Carrying the Gates of Gaza, in a privileged position near the bema, which was considered
the most important and holy place in the synagogue as it was the closest to Jerusalem.120
The Samson Carrying the Gates of Gaza mosaic in particular was very near the entryway,
and it is likely that this mosaic would have been one of the first images one would
encounter upon entering the space. However, this entryway would also have been one of
the most heavily trafficked areas of the entire synagogue and one of the areas of the floor
most commonly stepped on. All of these contradictions in the mosaic’s spatial location
speak to the tensions inherent in these artworks, which I will discuss further in chapter
five.
It is important to note that there mosaics other than the Samson scenes in the
Huqoq synagogue’s eastern aisle. To the north of Samson and the Foxes is a mosaic
fragment containing figural depictions, geometric and floriated patterns, and an
inscription.121 [Fig. 16] This was the first mosaic discovered in the 2012 season and
depicts a pair of female faces flanking a dedicatory inscription. The Hebrew or Aramaic
inscription, poorly preserved, is laid out in white tesserae on a black medallion
background. A white inscription on a black background is an inversion of the
conventional practice of synagogue inscriptions and is in fact unparalleled.122 David
Amit, of the Israel Antiquities Authority, reconstructed the damaged sections of the six-
lined inscription to read as follows: And blessed/ [are all of the people of the town] who/
120
Levine, Visual Judaism in Late Antiquity, 354-359.
121
122
Magness and Britt, et al. “Huqoq and its Synagogue Mosaics,” 353.
41
adhere to all/ commandments. So may be/ your labor and Ame[n Se]la[h]/ [P]eace.123 The
woman’s face to the south of the inscription is badly damaged, but what remains shows a
woman with red hair, tied in a topknot secured by a band of green glass tesserae.124 Glass
was a very uncommon material to use in a floor mosaic as it was far less durable than
stone, although it was popular in Hellenistic period mosaics.125 The visual effect would
also have been very different; the glass tesserae would reflect light in a different way and
would have thus drawn attention to this woman’s face. The inclusion of these glass
tesserae would likely have evoked prestige and wealth either for the woman depicted, or
the patron of this particular mosaic.126
The northern face [Fig. 17] is better preserved and depicts a female head with her
hair parted in the center, with waves tumbling down both sides and a horizontal band of
tesserae across her head, which seems to depict some sort of tiara or head band. Both of
the female faces have nimbi surrounding their heads, with a floral motif, possibly a lotus
123
Magness et, al. “Huqoq and its Synagogue Mosaics,” 340-341.
The late David Amit reconstructed and translated the mosaics
1. ‫]וברוכי[ ן‬
2. ‫]כל בני העיר[ שהן‬
3. ‫מתח ]זקי[ ן בכל‬
4. ‫מצות כן יהא‬
5. [‫עמלכן ואמ]ס ן[ל]ה‬
6. [‫]ש[ל]ום‬
124
Magness et, al. “Huqoq and its Synagogue Mosaics,”, 353.
125
Katherine Dunbabin, Mosaics of the Greek and Roman World, (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2001).
The popularity of green glass tesserae in the Hellenistic period is attested by
Ruth Westgate, "Pavimenta atque emblemata vermiculata: Regional Styles in Hellenistic Mosaics and the
First Mosaics at Pompeii," American Journal of Archaeology. 104 (2000): 255- 275.
126
Glass tesserae is rarely found in floor mosaics in Palestine; the only other known glass tesserae are
found in the Hellenistic mosaics at Tel Dor, which were likely imported from a foreign mosaic workshop.
This is largely due to the fragility of glass tesserae and the relative expense in comparison to local stone
tesserae.
42
flower, protruding above them.127 They both turn towards the inscription, with their
nimbi touching the outer edge of the black inscription medallion. The remaining floral
motifs curve around the inscription and seem to encompass and connect the inscription
and the female faces. Britt has noted that depictions of female figures in the aisle of a
synagogue is unique to Huqoq and has offered three possibilities as to the identification
of the female figures: as personifications of the Seasons, as Nikai (Victories), or as donor
portraits.128 Thus, this mosaic is in fact just as uncommon as the Samson mosaics, and
speaks to the unconventional tastes and choices of the patrons of Huqoq.
The most recently uncovered mosaic is the furthest north in the east aisle and is
different in its composition from the previous mosaics. The Samson mosaics were
composed as one scene per panel; the so-called Maccabee mosaic [Fig. 18] is divided into
three registers, surrounded by a wavy ribbon border.129 The lowest register is the most
damaged but preserves a soldier and a slain bull, both figures killed by spears or large
arrows, with blood rushing down the dead bodies. The figures, filling the entire space of
the register, are dynamic and dramatic, which stands in contrast to the very posed and
127
128
129
Magness has proposed an identification of these mosaics as either a scene (or scenes) from the Book of
Maccabees, or as depicting the legendary story of Alexander meeting the High Priest at Solomon’s Temple.
While both theories have their merits, it seems more likely that the post-Biblical story of the Maccabees
given the presence of the oil lamps (a reference to the miracle of the oil), and the elder surrounded by his
sons (a reference to Mattathias and his sons who led the revolt). The strongest opposition to this initial
identification is the inclusion of an elephant, which Magness suggests points to the legend of Alexander
coming to Jerusalem. However, elephants were mentioned in 1 Maccabees, and were used as an emblem of
the Seleucid Empire, and therefore their inclusion does not negate the Maccabean identification.
Additionally, the head of the so-called Alexander figure (the only part of the mosaic uncovered in the 2014
season that has yet been published) is depicted with a beard, which is antithetical to how Alexander the
Great was always depicted. It should be noted, however, that the precise identification of this mosaic is not
central to the argument of this thesis and I look forward to further studying this enigmatic panel.
1 Maccabees 5:30-46.
For Alexander portraits see: Smith, Hellenistic Sculpture, 19-33.
For Seleucids and elephants see: Paul J. Kosmin, The Land of the Elephant Kings: Space, Territory, and
Ideology in the Seleucid Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014).
43
stoic figures in the middle register. In this register, the seven men are organized by an
architectural arcade, each framed by an arch topped with a lit oil lamp on the entablature.
The six standing men are young and beardless and are depicted frontally with their heads
turned to a three-quarter view towards the central elder who is seated. While each of the
young men has a different hairstyle and is therefore individualized, they wear identical
garments: a long-sleeved white tunic, decorated with purple trim at the neck, wrists, and
hemline. They are additionally adorned with segmenta over the right shoulders, white
mantles with gammadia draped over their left arms, and orbiculi at the knees.130
While the middle register is ordered and organized, the upper register mirrors the
dynamism of the lower register. By the end of the 2013 season, only part of the
uppermost register was uncovered, but what is exposed shows the lower bodies of four
males, with the three to the south wearing very similar costumes to the figures in the
middle register and seem to face the fourth man who wears a distinctive costume. The
men to the south grasp sheathed daggers, and their feet and leg positions suggest directed
movement towards the fourth. This man, who is centrally located within the wider
composition of the mosaic, wears a yellow-ochre cuirass with waist pteruges below,
covering his knee-length tunic. He has darker skin than the others and a red cloak is
visible behind him.131 On the far north side of the upper register, an armored elephant
stands in significantly smaller scale than the human figures. The elephant is wearing a
jeweled collar and has a shield strapped to its body.132 Above this elephant, the lower
body of another elephant seems to emerge from beneath the west baulk. In between the
130
131
Ibid., 354.
132
Ibid., 354.
44
elephants and the human figures, the cloven hooves and forelegs of another animal
occupy the space. The excavation team has not determined the identification of the men
and these three scenes. Several theories have emerged, of which the most promising is
that the mosaic refers to the story of the Maccabees because of the scenes of battle in the
lower register, the Elder in the center of the middle register, likely depicting Judah
Maccabee or his father, and specifically, the oil lamps above the arcade of the middle
register. The upper register seems to depict a conflict between two groups, which would
follow this post-Biblical story of the battle between the Seleucid army and the
Maccabbean militia. And finally, elephants were part of the tradition of the Seleucid
army and a symbol of the empire, which could account for their inclusion.133
Taken as a whole, the mosaic program in the eastern aisle poses many issues and
questions, the most prominent of which is how they relate to one another. While a border
separates each mosaic scene from one another, thus dividing the pavement into panels, I
argue that the Samson mosaics compose a separate group from the female faces and the
Maccabee mosaic further north along the aisle. The two Samson mosaics are oriented
towards the west, meaning the figures would be seen “right side up” when looking at the
mosaics from the nave, facing towards the eastern wall. The female faces and inscription
as well as the Maccabee mosaics are, conversely, oriented to the east. [Fig. 19]
Additionally, the color palette shifts here from the cooler blues predominant in the
southern Samson mosaic group, to a much stronger emphasis on warmer reds and more
yellow in the northern mosaic group. Technical aspects also separate the two groups. The
Samson mosaics have a lower tesserae density—that is, number of tesserae per decimeter
133
Kosmin, The Land of the Elephant Kings.
45
square—than the female faces and Maccabee mosaic. Samson’s body in Samson
Carrying the Gates of Gaza averages between 152 and 178 tesserae/dm2, and in the Foxes
scene, the tesserae densities vary from 149 to 179.134 The female faces, by contrast, more
than double the number of tesserae per decimeter square, averaging 430.135 The central
Elder figure has the highest density in the Maccabee mosaic with 408 tesserae/dm2.136
Despite these differences in style and technique, there is no evidence to suggest
that they were completed at different times or by different artisans.137 Rather, as I will
argue, the mosaics appear to have been differentiated purposely by deploying varied
visual strategies. It is important to note that there are no other examples from the early
Byzantine period in the Galilee, or indeed all of Palestine, that exhibit this kind of
stylistic shift within the same building, let alone along the same aisle.138 Therefore, not
only are the motifs of the mosaics extremely rare, if not unique, but the ways in which the
decorative program was developed and carried out technically also seem to be unique to
the synagogue at Huqoq.
The Village in its Historical and Art Historical Context
As mentioned above, the village of Huqoq was situated very near the Sea of
Galilee, atop a moderate hill with a perennial fresh water spring running at the foot of the
134
Magness and Britt et al, “Huqoq and its Synagogue Mosaics,” 348-349.
135
Magness and Britt et al, “Huqoq and its Synagogue Mosaics,” 353.
136
Ibid., 355.
137
Magness, “Huqoq – 2011,” 1-7.
Magness, et al., “Huqoq – 2012,” 1-9.
Magness, et al., “Huqoq – 2013.” 1-10.
138
cf. Talgam, Mosaics of Faith.
46
northern slope of the hill.139 The excavation site is divided into the Village (Area 2000),
the Synagogue (Area 3000), and the mikveh (Area 4000). The mikveh lies at the lowest
elevation, then the village, and finally the synagogue lies at the highest elevation, visibly
higher than the rest of the area. Given the likely size of the synagogue, the building’s
height would have been great, probably two stories, thus rendering the synagogue visible
to both the villagers of Huqoq and those in the surrounding areas.140
While the synagogue was clearly an important aspect of the village, it is the
mikveh that most solidly identifies the village as a Jewish one. The mikveh is a Jewish
ritual bath used for purifying people and objects and was one of the most important
aspects of ancient Jewish ritual activity.141 The mikveh at Huqoq is a rock-cut trapezoidal
immersion room with an arched entrance leading to a stepped passage downward.142 [Fig.
20] The bottom of the room includes another two steps leading to a wide and shallow
immersion pool to be used for ritual purposes.143 The excavation team has noted that
given the mikveh’s location on the southern periphery of the village and therefore
adjacent to the agricultural areas of the village, it seems likely that this ritual bath was
used in connection with the production of ritually pure agricultural products, as well as
for human cleansing rituals.144
Due to the overwhelming evidence in its favor, we can definitively call Huqoq a
Jewish village during the Early Byzantine period. What is less clear however, is exactly
139
140
I am largely drawing on the Capernaum synagogue as the Huqoq synagogue is approaching its size, and
this synagogue (as well as many others) were two-storied.
141
Levine, Visual Judaism in Late Antiquity, 440.
142
143
Ibid., 332.
144
Ibid., 332.
47
what that means within the context of the wider Jewish population and religion. Huqoq’s
proximity to Tiberias has prompted scholars to question the influence of the Rabbinate
and the Patriarchate on the village and their artistic choices, as both bodies were based in
that city.145 In fact, the Galilee is considered the center of Jewish Palestine well into the
Byzantine period. The Patriarchate became the governing legalistic body of Palestinian
Jewry after the Destruction of the Temple and remained until Theodosius II abolished it
circa 415 CE.146
The Destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and the unsuccessful Bar Kokhba
revolt in 135 CE marked the end of Roman Imperial support for the Temple and Jewish
priests.147 Beginning in the late first and early second centuries CE, throughout the Near
East, the Roman emperors began replacing quasi-autonomous local rulers with Roman
governors, thus drastically changing the political situation in Palestine.148 While
technically the Roman governors held all of the legal and political authority, the
Patriarchate was allowed to continue exercising its power over the Jews. A political body
presiding over a group identified by religion and culture, the Patriarchate gained
influence in the third century, which is also around the time when they began claiming
Davidic ancestry.149 In the late fourth century, the patriarchs reached the peak of their
power, as indicated by Imperial laws of the 390s that recognized the Patriarchate’s power
145
Stuart S. Miller, “Priests, Purities, and the Jews of Galilee,” in Religion, Ethnicity, and Identity in
Ancient Galilee: A Region in Transition, ed. Jürgen Zangenberg, Harold W. Attridge, and Dale B. Martin
(Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 375-402.
146
Amnon Linder, editor and translator, The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation (Detroit, MI: Wayne State
University Press, 1987), 267-272.
147
Mark A. Chancey, Greco-Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press, 2005), 56-70.
148
Ibid., 70-81.
149
Seth Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society: 200 BCE to 640 CE, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2001), 113.
48
and jurisdiction over the Jews throughout the Empire.150 Indeed, according to
contemporary writer Epiphanius, the Patriarch was a regal figure, complete with all the
accoutrements of an emperor, who ruled the Jewish world as a sort of miniature Roman
Empire, albeit in its inferior pre-Constantinian days.151
This governing and judiciary body was additionally inextricably tied with the
rabbinic class. These early Rabbis were, primarily, not the spiritual leaders of
congregations, but rather scholars, who seemed to have been happier remaining in their
academy than travelling out to local synagogues.152 That is not to say, however, that they
were not afforded respect or that they did not have positions within local communities.153
They were indeed appointed as judges and religious functionaries, but only to those
communities who could afford them, and were more often than not, itinerant
presences.154
As mentioned previously, the few literary sources that mention the village of
Huqoq include an account of a rabbinic sage from the village, Rabbi Hizkiyah of Huqoq;
an account of the villager Yohanan taking a bag full of bread to a Rabbi in Tiberias; and a
story of Rabbi Simeon b. Lakish visiting the village where he saw the gathering of wild
mustard plants.155 Clearly Huqoq did not exist in a vacuum—the village had contact with
the rabbinic circles in Tiberias and also likely with the Patriarchate. However, this does
not necessarily mean that the Rabbis or the Patriarchs had a hand in the choice of
150
Linder, The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation, 186-189, 196-197, 201-204, 204-211, 215-217, 220-
222, 224-225.
151
Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, 117-118.
152
Lapin, Rabbis as Romans: The Rabbinic Movement in Palestine.
153
Miller, “Priests, Purities, and the Jews of Galilee,” 375-402.
154
Lee I. Levine, The Rabbinic Class of Roman Palestine in Late Antiquity (New York: Jewish Theological
Seminary of America, 1989).
155
Magness, et al. “Huqoq and its Synagogue Mosaics,” 328.
49
synagogue decoration. Those choices were almost exclusively in the hands of the wealthy
patrons who paid for the mosaics or other decoration.156
However, this relationship is further complicated by the fact that the Patriarchs
officially exercised control over synagogue personnel, and, much to the chagrin of many
Rabbis who were more strongly opposed to the beautification of houses of worship, held
a very receptive attitude towards Greek culture. In fact, the Patriarchs deemed the study
of the Greek language and culture as a requirement for official contact with the Roman
and Byzantine world.157 For example, Patriarch Judah II (r.230-270) surrounded himself
with families of wealthy Hellenized Jews. These wealthy people tended to be the patrons
of public art, such as that in synagogues, and, in an effort to prove their elite status, were
inclined to introduce that kind of Hellenized imagery and style into their synagogue
decorations.158 Thus, the patriarchal court, already liberal with regard to representative
art, would have had little opposition to the building projects and artistic decorations in the
Galilee.159
The most common kind of art that has survived to this day in the Galilee and
ancient Palestine in general is the floor mosaic. Floor mosaics were popular methods of
pavement in many building types in the eastern Mediterranean from the Hellenistic
period well into the Early Byzantine period and beyond.160 The earliest floor mosaics in
156
157
Joseph M. Baumgarten, “Art in the Synagogue: Some Talmudic Views,” in Jews, Christians, and
Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue: Cultural Interaction During the Greco-Roman Period, ed. Steven
Fine (New York: Routledge, 1999), 71-86.
158
Gosden, Archaeology and Colonialism, 41-113.
159
Baumgarten, “Art in the Synagogue: Some Talmudic Views,” 73-82.
160
50
Palestine date to the second century BCE and are located at Tel Dor.161 [Fig. 21] The
Hasmonean Palace at Jericho [Fig. 22] is another example of Hellenistic period mosaics
in Palestine and date from 63 BCE to 40 BCE.162 These two mosaics are extremely
different in terms of style: while the Tel Dor mosaic is a classicizing example of a
medallion bust and was likely imported from a foreign workshop, the Jericho Palace
mosaic is a much simpler, less delicate, purely geometric panel.163 While most of the
Hellenistic period mosaics in Palestine more closely resemble the Jericho Palace as
geometric patterns were the most popular motif, in the Late Roman period, a renewed
focus on figural mosaics is seen emerging in the mosaics at Sepphoris [see Fig. 6].164
During the Late Roman and Early Byzantine period, the style, design, and layout
of mosaic floors varied depending on geographic location, local traditions, and the
purpose of the building in which they were laid. Ernst Kitzinger identified some major
trends in the stylistic developments of mosaic floors in the Eastern Mediterranean, which
are useful in understanding how the mosaics in this study relate to general artistic trends.
Kitzinger points to what he considers the most important development: “the elimination
of devices which dissemble or contradict the material existence of the floor as a solid,
opaque and unified surface and the introduction of others which imply an acceptance of
that surface as a basis of the design.”165 Namely, what Kitzinger points to is the
disappearance of emblemata, a Hellenistic-era design device that creates a picture panel
161
162
Ibid., 9-10.
163
Ibid., 9-10.
164
Lee I. Levine, Lee I. and Zeev Weiss, ed, From Dura to Sepphoris: Studies in Jewish Art and Society in
Late Antiquity (Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series, 2000).
165
Ernst Kitzinger, “Stylistic Developments in Pavement Mosaics in the Greek East from the Age of
Constantine to the Age of Justinian,” in Art of Byzantium and the Medieval West: Selected Studies,
ed. Ernst Kitzinger (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1976), 64-88.
51
with the intention of creating an illusion of three-dimensionality, and the formation of a
flatter, more abstract, and carpet-like mosaic floor.166
Examples of this development are best seen in the mosaic pavements at Antioch,
although by no means are these developments confined to that city. The scene depicting
The Drinking Contest in Room 1 of the House of the Drinking Contest in Antioch is a
third-century example of an emblema.167 [Fig. 23] In this mosaic, the central scene,
framed by architectural details suggesting a recession of space, embraces traditional
Greco-Roman stylistic devices such as a focus on the body through three-dimensional
modeling. This scene is surrounded by two panels of a repeating geometric pattern. In
contrast, the late fifth-century mosaic pavement, known as the Hunting Pavement in
Room 1 of the House of the Worcester Hunt in Antioch, shows the other end of
Kitzinger’s stylistic development [Fig. 24].168 Unlike the earlier mosaic, this scene lacks
grounding in realistic space, with the figures rotating around a central figure, creating a
variety of angles from which one can experience the mosaic. Additionally, the lack of a
recessed picture plane clarifies the mosaic as a floor, and this self-referential
understanding of the floor mosaic as a floor is seen repeated throughout this time period.
This more abstract visualization of space is repeated in other mosaic pavement motifs,
including geometric, figural, or floral carpets and medallion busts.169
This development is also visible in Palestine. The third-century mosaic at the
House of Dionysus at Sepphoris [Fig. 25], located in the Lower Galilee, is composed of a
central rectangular carpet containing fifteen quasi-emblemata panels depicting various

166
Kitzinger, “Stylistic Developments in Pavement Mosaics in the Greek East,” 65-66.
167
Ibid., 65.
168
Ibid., 66.
169
Ibid.,68-70.
52
scenes from the life cycle of Dionysus.170 These mosaics contain delicately rendered
figures, in a classical color palette, emphasizing greens and other natural colors. These
panels face four different directions, which obliges the viewer to move from one scene to
the other, changing their physical perspective, a detail that has been noted by scholars as
adhering to Hellenistic traditions.171
A slightly later mosaic floor (second half of the third century) decorating a private
dwelling in Sepphoris exemplifies the variety of styles and compositions that were at play
during Late Antiquity. In comparison with the Dionysiac mosaic, the Orpheus mosaic
[Fig. 26], although also composed with quasi-emblemata, has a more compressed
background and two-dimensional appearance, causing the mosaic as a whole to be far
more carpet-like.172 While both of these mosaics are composed as emblemata,
abstraction comes into play far more clearly in figures in the Orpheus mosaics than the
characters in the Dionysiac mosaics. The figures’ black outlines and stiff movements
create a far less realistic scene than the more subtly modeled figures in the House of
Dionysus. It is important to note that all of the mosaics discussed thus far have been
private or secular floors. However, similar stylistic and compositional characteristics
were also present in religious settings.
The synagogues at Hammath Tiberias, Beth Alpha, and Sepphoris (see figures 4-
6) exemplify the typical Galilean synagogue floor mosaic program. Although they all
vary from one another in detail and style, the general composition remains the same.
170
Eric M. Meyers, Ehud Netzer, and Carol L. Meyers, “Sepphoris: ‘Ornament of all Galilee,’” The
Biblical Archaeologist 49 (Mar. 1986), 4-19.
171
Irving Lavin, “The Hunting Mosaics of Antioch and their Sources,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 17 (1963),
181-286.
172
53
Galilean synagogues are typically one- or two-aisled basilicas, with the figural mosaics
almost exclusively reserved for the nave. The expected artistic arrangement consists of
floriated carpet mosaics decorating the side aisles, with the floor at the entrance holding a
dedicatory inscription, and the nave program progressing from the inscription towards the
bema with Pentateuchal scenes such as the Binding of Isaac. Following the biblical
scenes, a large, round Zodiac cycle is typically in the center of the nave, with Helios in
the center and personifications of the seasons decorating the exterior of the circle. Closest
to the bema, where Torah would be read and liturgies led, are images of the Tabernacle
and/or the Temple with priestly instruments, such as the menorah, lulav, etrog, shofar,
and incense pan, surrounding it. While that was the typical arrangement, the mosaics of
the synagogue of Khirbet Wadi Haman, which I will discuss in the next chapter, and
Huqoq break with tradition most noticeably by including figural mosaics in the side
aisles.
As I discussed in Chapter 1, the very distinctive mosaics in the synagogue at
Huqoq, as well as the proximity of Huqoq to Tiberias, led scholars such as Matthew Grey
and Jodi Magness to search for a religiously based explanation of the mosaic program.173
Grey’s article is an important contribution to the study and understanding of Samson in
Jewish apocryphal texts from the Galilee during Late Antiquity. However, as Grey
approaches this study from with a question regarding religious practice as opposed to an
art-historical one, the mosaics themselves are effectively reduced to an illustration of a
religious concept. Due to the nature of extant evidence, Grey and Magness rely fairly
173
54
heavily on Christian sources as transmitters of Galilean synagogue liturgy. While this
approach is often necessary, unproblematically using Christian sources to “prove” Jewish
beliefs and practices inadvertently places Christians and Christianity in a privileged
hierarchical position. This method takes away agency from the Jewish people of Huqoq,
who designed and paid for the mosaics, and simply places the designs within a larger
religious and historical corpus that gives precedence to Christian art and liturgy. As we
cannot be sure that Christian sources accurately and unbiasedly report synagogue prayer
and practice, and because it is also unclear how much influence liturgy or rabbinic rules
had on communal artistic practices, I will take a very different approach than Magness
and Grey.
This thesis will accomplish an in-depth art historical analysis of the mosaics,
taking into account religious texts and archaeological evidence, as a way to better
understand the artistic impulses and communal connections in the Galilee during the
Early Byzantine period. By focusing on the mosaics as evidence and not merely
illustration, I believe that they will reveal much about the local community of Huqoq.
Further consideration of these mosaics, in particular in comparison with the Khirbet Wadi
Hamam mosaics, which will be introduced in the next chapter, will be the focus of
chapter five.
55
Chapter 4
KHIRBET WADI HAMAM: SAMSON IN THE GALILEE
Excavation History
The village of Khirbet Wadi Hamam is located two kilometers west of the Sea of
Galilee, two kilometers from Magdala and six kilometers from Tiberias, and is situated
on a steep slope at the base of Mt. Nitai and opposite of Mt. Arbel, a naturally fortified
location.174 The remains of the settlement cover roughly three hectares, making it one of
the largest Roman period villages in the eastern Galilee.175 Unlike the village of Huqoq,
the ancient name of Wadi Hamam has not survived and the site is only known by its
Arabic name, which was first recorded in a sixteenth-century Ottoman census.176 Uzi
Leibner directs the excavations at Khirbet Wadi Hamam, sponsored by Hebrew
University, Jerusalem that began in 2007.177 The final excavation report is forthcoming,
but the preliminary report of the excavations from 2007 through 2009 is published.
Before the current excavation project began, early archaeological surveys initially
identified the site in the nineteenth century and subsequent surveys suggested the
174
175
Ibid., 221.
176
Ibid., 221.
177
Ibid., 223.
56
possibility of the presence of a monumental synagogue.178 The first to draw attention to
the architectural fragments of a synagogue was J. Braslavsky in 1925, although the site
was not surveyed again until the 1970s and 1980s by G. Foerester and Z. Ilan,
respectively.179 Y. Shahar and Y. Tepper suggested in 1991 that the site was the ancient
village of Arbel, although Arbel is usually identified as the nearby Khirbet Irbid.180 The
most recent survey was undertaken by U. Leibner as part of the Eastern Galilee Survey.
This survey included the collection of hundreds of datable potsherds from the surface, as
well as shallow test pits dug around the village using the shovel-testing technique.181
Leibner collected nearly 600 identifiable and dateable pottery sherds, none of which he
identified as dating after the late fourth century.182 This was the basis of Leibner’s first
book, Settlement and History in Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Galilee: An
Archaeological Survey of the Eastern Galilee.183 Using this data, Leibner argued for the
occurrence of a decline and eventual abandonment of an increasing number of Jewish
settlements in the Galilee beginning in the third century and coming to a peak during the
early Byzantine Period (beginning of the fourth century) as a result of a number of
external pressures and catastrophic events.184
178
C.R. Conder and H.H. Kitchener, The Survey of Western Palestine vol 1: Galilee (London: Committee
of the Palestine Exploration Fund, 1881), 409.
179
See Leibner, “Excavations at Khirbet Wadi Hamam,” 221.
180
See Leibner, “Excavations at Khirbet Wadi Hamam,” 221-222.
181
Leibner, Settlement and History in Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Galilee, 71-74, 205-210.
182
Ibid., 71-74.
Magness, as noted in chapter 1, disagrees with Leibner’s dating typology
183
Leibner, Settlement and History in Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Galilee.
184
Ibid., 330-389.
57
After completing his Eastern Galilee Survey, Leibner began the in-depth
excavation of Khirbet Wadi Hamam. Two of the main goals of this undertaking were to
better understand the so-called Galilean Crisis of the third century and to add to the
scholarly debate regarding the dating of ‘Galilean’ type synagogues; these objectives
significantly reveal the underlying assumptions from which Leibner began this project.185
As discussed in chapter two, Leibner and Magness are at odds with one another over the
proper dating of local pottery types and disagree on whether or not there was a decline in
Galilean society and settlements during the Late Roman and Early Byzantine periods.
Thus, both excavation projects this thesis examines were begun, at least partially, in an
effort to prove their theories correct. While these incentives certainly do not in any way
negate the finds or analysis done by either scholar, the circumstances under which each
project was undertaken must be kept in mind.
In the seasons from 2007–2009, three areas at Wadi Hamam have been excavated:
the synagogue and its vicinity (Area A); a residential structure and agricultural
installation (Area B); and residential structures near the southern edge of the site (Area
C). [Fig. 27]186 The excavations of the agricultural installation in Area B revealed a
complete olive-press, datable pottery, and coins, all of which suggest and end of activity
at the end of the fourth or the beginning of the fifth century.187 Area B also revealed a
two-storied Early Roman dwelling built using the ‘Hauran dry building technique’ and
resembled other first century houses, including the ones excavated at Gamla.188 As
evidenced by an ash layer on the ground floor, this house was destroyed by a fire before
185
186
Ibid., 223-224.
187
Ibid., 224.
188
Ibid., 224.
58
its collapse.189 All of the materials found in this domestic structure dated from the late
Second Temple period to the early second century.190 There is no evidence of attempting
to rebuild over the Early Roman structure after its destruction, and instead it seems that
the residential area moved to the southern part of the village. Excavations in Area C
revealed at least two residential structures with a terminus post quem of the mid-third
century for the construction of the building, based on coins and pottery remains.191
Unfortunately, Leibner does not go into great detail about the possible implications of the
finds in the residential structures or the curious movement from north to south after the
destruction of the dwelling in Area B in this preliminary report—one can only assume
and hope it will be included in the final excavation report.
The main focus of the three excavation seasons was clearly the synagogue.192 In
just three seasons, the entire synagogue was exposed, barring some of the adjacent
rooms.193 Architectural fragments on the surface, including Doric/Tuscan capitals, a
corner pilaster, ashlars, and a lintel with a relief of a raptor, all carved from limestone,
indicated the location of the monumental synagogue.194 Although all of these
architectural elements were made of limestone, the walls of the synagogue were chiefly
built out of basalt, and therefore, Leibner postulated that the synagogue was not a single-
phase building, but had undergone renovations over time.195 It should also be noted that
basalt was not the typical building material for Galilean synagogues and is a very heavy,
189
Ibid., 224.
190
Ibid., 224-225.
191
Ibid., 226-227.
192
Ibid., 227.
193
Ibid., 228.
194
Ibid., 228.
195
Ibid., 228.
59
dense stone and therefore a more challenging building material than the relatively
lightweight limestone.196 The synagogue is a slightly skewed rectangular basilica,
oriented north–south with two-meter thick walls: the exterior dimensions are 17.2 x 14.7
meters and the average interior dimensions measure 15.4 x 12.8 meters.197
Leibner calls the architecture “typical of ‘Galilean’ synagogues,” referencing the
typology of Palestinian synagogues first established by E.L. Sukenik in 1934.198
According to this typology, which has been challenged and largely disproved recently by
scholars such as Levine, Magness, and Amit, the ‘Galilean’ synagogues dated to the
second and third centuries and were characterized by a basilical plan; a large and
decorated façade with three doors in the Jerusalem-facing wall; richly carved stone relief
decorations; a paved floor; and no permanent place for the Torah ark.199 While the
synagogue at Wadi Hamam is a basilica and clearly had carved stone decorations, as
evidenced by the architectural remains, it also has several features that seem to push this
synagogue outside of this category: the mosaic floors, to be discussed further in the next
section of this chapter, and the bema as a place for the Torah. Additionally, there is only a
single door in the southern wall, which itself has a pronounced deviation to the southeast,
likely due to the need to accommodate the local topography.
196
Ibid., 228.
197
Ibid., 228.
198
199
Magness, “The Question of the Synagogue: The Problem of Typology,” 1-48.
Milson, Art and Architecture of the Synagogue in Late Antique Palestine, 22-30.
The other groups in this typology are: the “transitional” fourth century broad-house plan with a fixed place
for the Torah ark in the Jerusalem facing wall, a decline in carved stone relief decoration, some floor
mosaics and sometimes a lack of columns; the “Byzantine” fifth—sixth century apsidal basilica plan with
mosaic floors, and rubble construction.
60
Leibner explains these discrepancies by identifying two distinct phases of the
synagogue building. In a personal correspondence, Leibner noted that the mosaic floor
belonged to the second phase and dated around 280-300 CE, in contrast to the first
preliminary excavation report that dated the mosaic floor to the first phase a few
generations before 280 CE.200 The bema was added in the later phase along south wall and
was constructed with a “frame” of limestone ashlars, consisting of two courses and a
cornice above with a fill of fieldstones and earth, and probably covered by a wooden
platform.201 Thus, the two main deviations from the typical ‘Galilean’ style synagogue
can be dated to the later phase, and can perhaps be thought of a combination of the
‘Galilean’ and ‘transitional’ types of the fourth century. Although not explicitly drawing
on the traditional typological system of dating synagogues, Leibner, at least in this
excavation report, does not problematize the system, and in many ways, reinforces it.
The first objective of the Khirbet Wadi Hamam excavation project was to “shed
new light” on the debate regarding the dating of ‘Galilean’ type synagogues.202 This
debate began when the stratigraphic excavation of the Capernaum synagogue suggested
that the synagogue’s initial construction should be pushed from the second or third
century (which was the date based on the old art historical and architectural typology) to
the fifth century. Thus, the old typology based on building style was called into question.
Since then, some archaeological projects corroborate the original dating scheme: these
include Eric Meyer’s excavations of Khirbet Shema, Merion, Gush Halav, and Nabratein,
which dated those synagogues to the second or third century, as their architectural
200
Uzi Leibner, email to author, September 3, 2014.
201
202
Ibid., 222.
61
features would suggest.203 However, other scholars, the most vocal of whom is Magness,
question the conclusions drawn by those excavations and propose a new stratigraphic
analysis of old excavations that push the dating of the synagogues forward to the fifth and
sixth centuries.204 This debate has far-reaching implications, as Leibner notes:
If these synagogues were indeed built two or three hundred years later than the
period during which their architectural style is known to have flourished, then the
standard art-historical method of stylistic dating would be problematic, to say the
least. Furthermore, adopting the late chronology would leave us with no
synagogues from the 2nd to early 4th c., the heyday of the Galilean Jewish
community, and would date them instead to an era characterised by the sources as
one of a declining Jewish population suffering from oppression under a Christian
regime.205
I quote at length because I believe that this is vital to understanding Leibner’s approach.
He began the excavation in part to reinforce the conclusions of his Eastern Galilee
Survey: that is, that the Galilean Jewish community thrived from the second century until
the late third century, when the Galilee underwent a settlement crisis.206 Thus, Leibner,
almost by default, must side with the original typology of synagogues in the Galilee, as
the other side of the debate challenges the idea of a decline in the Galilee at the beginning
of the Byzantine period. However, what Leibner does not consider is the very likely
203
Eric M. Meyers, A. Thomas Kraabel and James F. Strange, Ancient Synagogue Excavations at Khirbet
Shema’, Upper Galilee, Israel 1970-1972 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1976).
Eric M. Meyers, James F. Strange, and Carol L. Meyers , Excavations at Ancient Meiron, Upper Galilee,
Israel 1971-72, 1974-75, 1977, (Cambridge, MA: American Schools of Oriental Research,1981).
Eric M. Meyers, Carol L. Meyers and James F. Strange, Excavations at the Ancient Synagogue of Gush
Halav (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990).
Eric M. Meyers and Carol L. Meyers, Excavations at Ancient Nabratein: Synagogue and Environs (Winona
Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009).
204
Jodi Magness, “Synagogue Typology and Earthquake Chronology at Khirbet Shema’, Israel,” Journal of
Field Archaeology 24 (1997): 211-220.
Magness, “The Question of the Synagogue: The Problem of Typology,” 1-48.
205
206
Leibner, Settlement and History in Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Galilee, 330-389.
62
possibility that multiple architectural plans and styles, including decorative styles, could
have been in use at the same time throughout the entire period in question.
The initial conclusions based on the first three excavation seasons reinforced
Leibner’s assertion that the Galilee went into a decline, with many settlements being
abandoned in the late fourth century.207 Leibner’s analysis of the stratigraphy and the
datable remains at Wadi Hamam suggests that the building probably collapsed in an
earthquake in the late fourth or early fifth century.208 Although no Hasmonean period
structures were found, Late Hellenistic pottery and coins from around 80 BCE were
discovered, suggesting that occupation began in the late Hasmonean period or the
beginning of the Early Roman period (around the first century BCE).209 Leibner suggests
that the destruction layer in residential Area B could be connected to the events of the Bar
Kokhba Revolt of 132–135 CE or the local unrest due to the arrival of the Legio VI
Ferrata c.129/130 CE.210 However, there is no other evidence of the village being
involved in the Revolt, so this suggestion, at least for the time being, cannot be proven.
Despite the early destruction in Area B, there is ample evidence that indicates that the
village flourished again in the late third century, the time period when the second phase
of the monumental synagogue was erected and renovated.211 Stratigraphic evidence
points to a decline in the settlement in the mid-fourth century and a complete
abandonment of the site at the end of the fourth or the beginning of the fifth century.
Leibner suggests, as in his Eastern Galilee Survey, that the reason for the desertion of the
207
Leibner, “Excavations at Khirbet Wadi Hamam,” 221-237. PUT EXAMPLE
208
Ibid., 231-232.
209
210
Ibid., 235.
Chancey, Greco-Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus, 64.
211
63
site could have been the dramatic events of the mid-fourth century, such at the Gallus
Revolt of 351/352 and the earthquake of 363, although he continues to support the idea
that the decline was the product of long-term factors.212 Because Leibner follows the
original typology and chronology of Galilean synagogues, the prayer hall at Wadi
Hamam is extremely noteworthy as one of the only ‘Galilean’ types to be decorated with
a mosaic floor and the earliest figural synagogue mosaic yet known.213
The Wadi Hamam Synagogue Mosaics
The state of the mosaic floor of the synagogue at Khirbet Wadi Hamam is very
poor and only about six percent of the mosaic has been preserved.214 Thirty fragments of
the mosaic floor survive, although most are minuscule and include the remains of
geometric and floral motifs, four Aramaic inscriptions, and figural scenes. Although
heavily damaged, enough mosaic fragments survive to determine the basic design and
layout of the entire floor. The nave consisted of a carpet mosaic with a frame that
comprised three parts: a red wave or ribbon pattern in the outermost band; a central band
of a multi-colored double guilloche; and an inner section most likely consisting of a
variety of geometric, floral, and faunal designs arranged in rectangular panels with
alternating square panels enclosing medallions [See Fig. 10].215 In the center of the nave,
212
Ibid., 236.
213
Ibid., 236.
214
215
Ibid., 239.
64
remains of two concentric circles are preserved; these might have been part of a zodiac
cycle, although the mosaic is far too damaged to permit certainty.216
One of the largest fragments preserved is the Samson mosaic in the west aisle of
the synagogue [see Fig. 1]. This mosaic is more centrally located than its counterpart in
the synagogue at Huqoq, although both are oriented so that one must view the mosaic
standing in the nave looking toward the wall. This is particularly relevant for the
synagogue at Wadi Hamam, as there are remains of benches along the walls where
congregants would sit looking into the nave, an architectural feature not found at
Huqoq.217 Thus, this mosaic would only have been easily visible from the other side of
the synagogue if one were seated or from the nave if one were standing.
The Samson scene, enclosed by a two-strand guilloche border, depicts a giant
figure defeating his enemy. The Hebrew inscription partially preserved in the North East
corner reads: “The sons of Simon made [donated] this panel from their own [means].”218
This inscription significantly points to the practice of patrons making donations for one
specific part of the mosaic program and suggests the common practice of a mosaic floor
having multiple patrons.219 The panel contains eight human figures, five of whom suffer
from gushing head wounds and are dead or dying, one of whom appears to be running
away from the giant figure on his horse, and a seventh figure in the top of the panel, who
also appears to be turning to run away from Samson, although on foot.
216
Ibid., 239. It would not surprise me if there was indeed a zodiac cycle in the center of the nave as there
are several examples of this motif, including the nearby synagogue of Hammath Tiberias.
217
Magness, et al. “Huqoq and its Synagogue Mosaics,” 327-347.
218
219
65
All of the figures wear short tunics, and most of the regular sized-men are
equipped with weapons: daggers, swords, spears, and shields. Samson grasps three of
these men by their heads (indeed, Samson’s hand does not even touch the man on the far
right), lifting them up off the ground. Blood spurts violently from their heads, a rare
depiction of a fatal injury.220 The “regular-sized” men wear simple, long-sleeved,
unbelted tunics, a style worn by civilians, hunters, and soldiers during the third and fourth
centuries. The varying shades within the garments suggest an attempt at depicting
drapery folds. Below their feet lie the three weapons depicted in the panel: a sword, a
spear, and a shield. It is unclear whether these weapons were meant to belong to the three
men being grasped by the hair, or just to serve as a representative of the weapons present.
Below Samson, in between his feet, are two other soldiers wearing the same costume and
wielding the same weapons as the men being grasped by their heads. Again, blood
streams from their heads—these men are likely already dead. The lower body of one of
the men is completely hidden by the calf of the giant, again emphasizing Samson’s
comparative size.
The figure on the horse recalls the depiction of the rider running away from
Samson in the Huqoq synagogue. The horse’s two front hooves are far above the ground,
suggesting a sense of urgent movement away from the giant man. The man holds his
spear and shield at attention, and he continues to look back at the carnage behind him.
Like the figure on the horse, the western figure, unfortunately only extant from his waist
220
There are no other known examples of bloody wounds on human figures in synagogue mosaics in
Palestine from the Byzantine period, with the exception of the bottom register Huqoq Maccabee mosaic.
Indeed, even violent confrontations between animals are very rare, with the exception of a few non-
synagogue sites: the northern aisle in the church at Kissufim (late sixth century) and the mosaic in the Nile
Festival Building in Sepphoris.
Talgam, Mosaics of Faith, 198, 417.
66
down, appears to be running away from Samson and the bloodshed. He is be wearing
some sort of trouser or legging—while all of the other men, including Samson are bare-
legged––and wears a pleated (perhaps armored) and decorated tunic to the knee. It is
clear that his costume is different and more elaborate than the others’ in the scene, a
typical device to separate and emphasize key characters. He stands on his toes, leaning
his entire body weight onto his left foot, with his left knee bent and right leg straight as if
about to push off of the ground in a run. The degree of detail in depicting his knee cap
and his clothing is not matched in any other figure in what remains of the mosaic except
for the figure of Samson, suggesting that the western figure was an important individual
within the scene and the story it might represent.
Samson wears a similar knee-length tunic, although his enjoys some decoration:
strips of color on the bottom edge and around the wrists and two orbiculi above the hem
band (the same as the apotropaic symbol on the cloak of Samson and the Foxes in
Huqoq). This style of tunic, as well as the tunics of the rest of the men, have been found
in third-century contexts and continued into the Byzantine period, suggesting that the
artist drew from the world around him to depict the clothing in this mosaic.221 There was
a certain degree of attention given to the modeling of Samson’s body not present in the
other men, with the exception of the western figure. His kneecaps clearly protrude from
his leg, and he stands in a somewhat more natural position, although with both of his feet
turned out (likely to better frame the dead men underneath him). However, he does not
share the sense of movement with the western figure, but rather a sense of stability and
221
If it is indeed a third-century mosaic; however, even if it is later than the third-century (as Magness
suggests), the artisan would have been drawing on known visual tropes.
67
strength. In order to depict his vast strength, an arched vertical band of slightly darker
tesserae define the muscles of Samson’s calves. He is depicted not only as three to four
times the size of the other men in the panel, but also as significantly stronger than they
are.
This scene most likely depicts the story from Judges: 15-16 in which Samson
smites one thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. This story occurred after
Samson and the Foxes, when the Philistines demanded Samson to be turned over to them
to pay for his rampage. The Israelites gave Samson up, and the Philistines took him into
bondage. However, soon “the Spirit of the Lord gripped him…the bonds melted off his
hands/ and he found a fresh jawbone of an ass, and put out his hand and took it, and with
it he struck 1,000 men./ And Samson said, “With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon
heaps, with the jawbone of an ass have I struck down a thousand men.” (Judges 14-16)
Immediately after this incident, Samson is gripped by a terrible thirst that can only be
quenched with the Lord’s intervention. God grants Samson his water, thereby condoning
Samson’s smiting of the Philistines. Samson then leaves Lehi and leads the Israelites for
the next twenty years. (Judges 16-20) Thus, this scene is one of triumph of the Israelites
and Samson.
The Samson mosaic, although certainly the most significant for this study, is not
the only figural mosaic preserved in the synagogue at Wadi Hamam. In the northeast
corner of the synagogue, a panel partially preserves what Leibner and Miller call “the
construction scene.”222 [see Fig. 8] The scene consists of a large, polygonal stone
structure at its center, surrounded by craftsmen, either in pairs or individually, at work
222
68
building the main structure.223 A total of thirteen craftsmen survive in varying degrees of
completion and Leibner has identified the crafts of the most complete figures: there are
four carpenters, three porters, and one stonemason.224 The craftsmen are depicted in
either a tunic or a loincloth––clothing that indicates that the men are engaged in hard
labor––barefoot, and on a plain white background, similar to the background of the
Samson panel.225 Representations of construction workers with their tools, including
carpenters and masons, was a common motif in art throughout the Roman Empire. The
objects from which these scenes are known to us span from wall paintings and funerary
reliefs to painted glassware, and are thought to commemorate craftsmen and extol their
work.226 However, Leibner suggests that this construction scene, given its location in a
synagogue and having the building at the focal point of the image, is working in a
different way than the Roman artworks.227 As all figural mosaics in ancient synagogues
found to date depict Biblical scenes, Leibner turns to episodes from the Bible as possible
interpretations for this mosaic, specifically the constructions of Noah’s Ark (Genesis 6-
8), the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11), the Tabernacle (Exodus 25-26) and Solomon’s
Temple (1 Kings 5-6), as well as the slavery of the Israelites in Egypt (Exodus 1), and the
building of the walls of Jerusalem by Solomon (1 Kings 3:1, 9:15) or Nehemiah (3-4).228
However, Leibner quickly dismisses the Tabernacle and Noah’s Ark as both were
described as being built of wood.229 While the other interpretations remain possible,
223
Ibid., 241.
224
Ibid., 243.
225
226
Jean-Pierre Adam, Roman Building: Materials and Techniques (London: Routledge, 2005), 32-34.
227
228
Ibid., 247.
229
Ibid., 247.
69
Leibner concludes that the mosaic most likely depicts the Biblical narrative of the
construction of Solomon’s Temple.230 This is a very interesting interpretation as the
Temple is a often included in synagogue mosaic floors, depicted as a façade surrounded
by priestly instruments near the bema as in the synagogues at Hammath Tiberias, Beth
Alpha and Sepphoris.231 These mosaics held a position of prominence and importance in
these mosaic programs, which this mosaic does not seem to share. Leibner and Miller
note that there is no other known depiction of the building of the Temple in any other
synagogue, although it is known in Christian art, the earliest example of which is an
illuminated Bible known as the Quedlinburg Itala [Fig. 28] from the late fourth or early
fifth century, likely produced in Rome. This Christian tradition of depicting and
discussing the building of the Temple was continued in later Christian literary and art
works from the fourth century onwards.232 It is difficult, if not impossible, to accurately
identify this scene given its state of preservation. The possibility of it depicting the
building of Solomon’s Temple is intriguing as it would be the first such illustration
known in a Jewish context. However, I am hesitant to wholly agree with Leibner and
Miller, and propose that the mosaic could also be a scene of slavery in Egypt from
Exodus.233
I suggest that the construction scene might depict part of the story of Exodus
because there is a clear depiction of another scene from Exodus in the so-called
230
Ibid., 248-249.
231
Talgam, Mosaics of Faith, 254-275, 295-303, 281-295.
232
233
Another possible interpretation of this scene is the building of Noah’s Ark. Scenes of the story of Noah
are known during this time period, such as the fifth century mosaic floor of the Gerasa synagogue.
However, given the inclusion of the soldier in the maritime mosaic scene, I believe it makes the most sense
as a scene of slavery in Egypt.
For the Gerasa mosaics see: Talgam, Mosaics of Faith, 319-321.
70
“maritime scene.” [see Fig. 9] 234 This mosaic is directly to the south of the Samson
mosaic, near the southwest corner of the synagogue and depicts a chariot pulled by three
horses at an angle suggesting that the chariot will be turned over at any moment. Directly
below the axles of the chariot are the remains of a huge fish, partially obscuring a fallen
soldier, who is only preserved from the chest down. The inclusion of a fish is indicative
of a watery setting, and therefore, the fallen soldier is lying on the sea floor, drowned. A
city is represented in the southeast corner of the panel. Together, all of these details
clearly identify this scene as the drowning of the Pharaoh’s army in the Red Sea from
Exodus 14-15: “When Pharaoh’s horses, chariots and horsemen went into the sea, the
Lord brought the waters of the sea back over them.” (Exodus 15:19) Thus, the
construction scene and this Exodus scene may speak to one another across aisles,
emphasizing the narrative, as well as juxtaposing oppression and freedom.
Leibner points out a number of stylistic differences between the three mosaic
panels, mostly focusing on body positioning and the degree to which the artist was
“successful” in creating a sense of three-dimensionality.235 For example, the figures in the
construction scene are depicted in three-quarter view with a stronger degree of naturalism
than the fully frontal and angular figures in the Samson scene.236 Additionally, with a
comparison of the horse from the Samson mosaic and the horses in the Drowning of
Pharaoh’s Army scene, it is clear that the horses in the maritime scene are executed with
a greater attention to volume and movement.237 These differences cannot be denied
(although I don’t necessarily agree with Leibner’s judgment of “success”), and Leibner
234
235
Ibid., 259-261.
236
Ibid., 259-260.
237
Ibid., 260.
71
suggests that they are best explained as the work of a master and his apprentice.238
However, it is clear that the intention of the design was to be cohesive given the
consistency of the tesserae material (mostly limestone) and the color palette.239 The
density of the tesserae does vary much between the scenes, especially with regard to the
figures. The figures in the construction scene average 218 tesserae per decimeter square
(tesserae/dm2); Samson and the other figures averaged 169 tesserae/ dm2 and the horses in
the Red Sea scene average 130 tesserae/ dm2.240 Despite all of these differences, and the
far greater number of tesserae in the construction scene, I am hesitant to agree with
Leibner that it was a simple matter of a “master” artisan versus the work of a “lesser”
assistant as the same materials were utilized throughout and the entire program would
have been planned out before the actual work of laying out the tesserae began. Therefore,
it is clear that more complex factors were at play, although as most of the synagogue
mosaic was destroyed, it is impossible to know if those factors were multiple patrons or
patrons of differing wealth for different panels of the mosaic; or a more conscientious
matter of what was considered a more acceptable way of portraying certain scenes and
stories.
The mosaics of the synagogue at Khirbet Wadi Hamam, in both their plan and
composition, are very rare and perhaps even unique for an ancient synagogue. The
inclusion of figurative images in the aisle differs from the traditional composition of
synagogue mosaic floors, which perhaps suggests that these mosaics derived from a
238
Ibid., 260.
239
240
72
different impetus or inspiration than the norm. The following chapter will establish and
explore the connection between the synagogues and villages of Huqoq and Wadi Hamam.
I will closely analyze and compare styles, techniques, the physical location and layout of
the mosaics in the synagogue, and the experience of viewing the mosaics within the
synagogue space in order to understand why Samson was chosen as part of these
synagogue mosaic programs. I propose that the two villages, whether occupied
contemporaneously or a century apart, are consciously connected through their artistic
similarities and choices, namely, their depictions of Samson, which in turn express claims
of identity by these villages.
73
Chapter 5
SAMSON’S GALILEE: CONSTRUCTING A HYBRID JEWISH IDENTITY
The Problematic Labels of Jewish Mosaics
As introduced in chapter 2, the terminology and labels applied to mosaics in
Palestine, specifically “Hellenistic/Hellenism” and “Romanized/Romanism,” are
particularly problematic. The use of these labels has allowed scholars to gloss over the
intricacies of the styles of the artworks as well as to reduce the complexities of the
political and social relationships of Palestine under Greek, Roman, and Byzantine rule.241
While scholars explicitly acknowledge certain Hellenistic and Roman material culture
that emerged in the Holy Land, specifically the use of the basilica and the categories of
mosaic style, they tend to shy away from fully defining Palestine as a colony by focusing
on the local “Jewishness” of the land.242 The odd placement of Palestine within the
construction of the colonized East comes from the understanding of Palestine as the seat
241
This is especially prevalent in earlier scholarship such as:
M. Avi-Yonah, Art in Ancient Palestine: Selected Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1981).
Erwin R. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1988).
M. Avi-Yonah, The Jews under Roman and Byzantine Rule: A Political History of Palestine from the Bar
Kokhba War to the Arab Conquest (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1976), 89-253.
242
cf. other Hellenistic colonies such as Pergamon, which is almost exclusively considered by scholars in
the context of its “Greekness” often without mention of the local traditions already in place at the time of
the Macedonian expansion.
74
for normative Judaism as opposed to Diaspora or Hellenized Judaism.243 Scholars of
ancient Judaism see the Jews of Palestine as the center of the Jewish world, and therefore
their art is considered to reflect “standard” Jewish artistic styles and motifs of their
period. Therefore, the construction of Jewish art as normatively Hellenized or Romanized
paradoxically enforces the notion of Judaism, and the Jewish people, as artless, or at least
without an artistic style of their own.244 Because of this preconception of Jews as
inherently artless, artworks created by and for Jews in Palestine, while being categorized
as “Jewish,” have largely been considered a byproduct of the current colonial power,
especially in discussions of their style. Therefore, a productive discussion of these
mosaics is dependent on deconstructing and reconstructing these terms in a way that
reasserts the Jewish agency of these artworks and that accounts for the cultural hybridity
that resulted from this colonial encounter.
The pervasiveness of the labels “Hellenistic” and “Romanized,” as well as a lack
of better alternative, has forced archaeologists and art historians to use them. Although
many scholars employ these terms self-consciously, being fully aware of their
problematic nature, their use, nevertheless, reinforces the hegemony of Greek and Roman
influence in an area of their empires that did not necessarily fall under such direct and
powerful control. While there is some scholarly dissent on whether or not the Galilee
flourished or declined from the third through fifth centuries, the Galilee is generally
treated as a Jewish region, although there is ample evidence of gentile presence in the
243
244
Ibid., 47-52.
Talgam, Mosaics of Faith, xiv. “The Jews did not develop a distinctive style of their own, and we shall ask
why they did not consider style an important component in the designation of their cultural identity.”
75
area.245 Archaeological evidence, such as Roman baths, theaters, and coins at Sepphoris,
Tiberias, and Beit She’an, and tombstones of Roman soldiers in the vicinity of Tiberias,
as well as Rabbinic sources which mention interactions between Jews and Roman
soldiers, points to a Roman population at least in the major cities in and near the
Galilee.246 The Galilee did not receive a permanent Roman military garrison, Legio II
Traina, until around 120 CE, which was replaced with Legio IV Ferrata a few years
later.247 Legio IV Ferrata constructed its main base in the Jezreel Valley, slightly south of
the lower Galilee region.248 The military devoted significant time and resources to
building a system of roads throughout all of Palestine, including the Galilee. This
contributed to the spread of Roman material culture and architectural practice, and stood
as a demonstration of imperial might. However, it also likely facilitated local, non-
Roman interactions between the cities and villages.249 The spread of Roman presence in
material culture and human population into the Galilee during the second century created
a space in which the Jews engaged with the Romans on a social and personal level.250
245
Leibner, Settlement and History in Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Galilee, 375.
Levine, Visual Judaism in Late Antiquity, 317-336, 443-455.
Mark A. Chancey, Greco-Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 2005), 43-216.
246
Moshe Dothan, Hammath Tiberias: Early Synagogues and the Hellenistic and Roman Remains
(Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1983), 1-88.
Zeev Weiss and Ehud Netzer, “Hellenistic and Roman Sepphoris: The Archaeological Evidence,” in
Sepphoris in Galilee: Crosscurrents of Culture, ed. Rebecca Martin Nagy, Carol L. Meyers, Eric M.
Meyers, Zeev Weiss (Raleigh, NC: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1996) 29-38.
Amihai Mazar, Excavations at Tel Beth-Shean 1989-1996 Volume 1 From the Late Bronze Age IIB to the
Medieval Period (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2006).
Mark A. Chancey, Greco-Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus,66-69.
247
Chancey, Greco-Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus, 63-64.
248
Eric M. Meyers and Mark A. Chancey, Alexander to Constantine: Archaeology of the Land of the Bible
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 260-261.
249
Meyers and Chancey, Alexander to Constantine, 261-264.
250
One example of the result of that cultural mixing is the Jewish necropolis at Beth Shearim in southwest
Galilee, in which the burial inscriptions are overwhelmingly written in Greek, which was also very
76
Despite the evidence of Romans inhabiting the Galilee, it is unclear how much
political influence the Roman imperial authority actually exerted over the Jews in
Palestine, especially those living outside of major cities. The status and power of the
office of the Patriarch has garnered many different conclusions from scholars. Depending
on the sources emphasized, scholars’ assessments of the Patriarch have ranged from an
understanding of the Patriarchate as the central governing body of Jewish life throughout
the entire Empire to him having a minimal influence.251 From laws enacted by the Roman
emperors, it can be inferred that the Patriarch was at understood by the Emperors to have
power over the Jews of Palestine, regardless of how that actually played out on a local
level.252 Despite scholarly disagreements regarding the level of Greco-Roman control and
influence in the Galilee, it is clear that the Galilee existed as a multicultural and
multiethnic region after the beginning of the second century. Therefore, it can be argued
that the mosaics exhibiting Greco-Roman stylistic influences were not the result of a top-
down official hybridization, but were rather, as van Dommelen asserts in his work on the
Hellenistic Mediterranean, the result of a local openness to the incoming material
culture.253
common for Roman burial inscriptions. In fact, Jews made ample use of Greek in inscriptions, in addition
to utilizing the more traditional languages of Hebrew and Aramaic.
Meyers and Chancey, Alexander to Constantine, 264.
251
Levine, “The Patriarchate and the Ancient Synagogue,” 87.
Hugo Mantel, Studies in the History of the Sanhedrin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961),
1-53, 175-253.
Martin Goodman, State and Society in Roman Galilee (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allenheld, 1983), 111-118.
Stuart A. Cohen, The Three Crowns: Structures of Communal Politics in Early Rabbinic Jewry
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 200-204.
252
Levine, “The Patriarchate and the Ancient Synagogue, 87-97.
Linder, The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation, 186-189, 196-197, 201-204, 204-211, 215-217, 220-222,
224-225.
253
Peter Van Dommelen, “Colonial Constructs: Colonialism and Archaeology in the Mediterranean,”
World Archaeology 28 (Feb. 1997), 305-323.
77
It is important to bear in mind that mosaic, as an art form, is in itself Greek, and
was not known in Palestine before Alexander the Great expanded the Greek empire.254
Before the rise and increased importance of local synagogues, mosaic floors were
exclusively produced for elite dwellings. Local elites, and the Roman kings and
governors (including Herod the Great) decorated their residences with mosaics partly to
assert their power and wealth.255 During the late third century, large, communal
synagogues increased in significance for Jewish communities, and during this time
mosaic decoration shifted from exclusively domestic structures to those religious-cultural
spaces.256 Synagogues, therefore, became part of that Hellenistic tradition: it marked the
space as important and indicated the community’s wealth and access to elite networks.
Therefore, there is no denying the influence of Greco-Roman artistic traditions in the
synagogue mosaics at Khirbet Wadi Hamam and Huqoq. However, simply labeling them
as Hellenistic or Romanized disregards the complexity of the mosaics and the liminal
cultural space in which they were created. Therefore, I will attempt to define the style of
these mosaics from a post-colonial viewpoint in order to better understand these artworks
from a local, Jewish perspective.257
254
255
G. Foerster, Masada V: The Yigael Yadin Excavations 1963-1965, Final Reports, Art and Architecture
(Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1995), 190-238.
256
Ovadiah, Hellenistic, Roman, and Early Byzantine Mosaic Pavements in Israel.
257
Said, Orientalism.
Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 66-84.
78
Hellenistic and Roman Mosaics in Palestine
In order to approach the Wadi Hamam and Huqoq synagogue mosaics from a
post-colonial perspective, it is first necessary to outline a concise history of the earlier
(and non-Jewish) mosaics in Palestine; it is only with this information that one can
understand the ways in which the Wadi Hamam and Huqoq synagogue mosaics are in
dialogue with, and against, these traditions. The Hellenistic period in Palestine began at
the death of Alexander the Great (323 BCE) and ended with the conquering of Jerusalem
by the Roman general Pompey in 63 BCE.258 This time period was divided into two main
dynasties, the Seleucids and the Hasmoneans. The Seleucids and the Jews had cordial
relations until Antiochus IV Epiphanes attempted to impose Hellenic cults on the Jewish
people. This sparked a revolt, resulting in the expulsion of the Seleucids and the
establishment of the independent Jewish kingdom under the Hasmoneans.259 In 63 BCE
general Pompey conquered Jerusalem and established Palestine as a client state of
Rome.260 The Roman Senate named Herod the Great King of the Jews in 40-39 BCE,
definitively marking the end of the Hellenistic period.261 It was at the beginning of this
period that floor mosaics were first introduced to the area.262 In this section, I will use the
terms Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine not to categorize the mosaics based on style, but
instead as identifiers for the time periods in which Palestine was under the control of
those empires.
258
259
Meyers and Chancey, Alexander to Constantine, 11-49.
260
Ibid., 50.
261
Ibid., 50.
262
Ibid., 50-52.
79
Very few mosaics remain in Palestine from the Hellenistic period, with the
earliest belonging to the time of the Seleucid dynasty (200/198 – 104/103 BCE) and the
greatest number belonging to the Hasmonean dynasty (104/103 – 63 BCE).263 There is no
trace of the use of pebble mosaic techniques in Palestine, where mosaicists exclusively
utilized the opus tessellatum or opus vermiculatum techniques.264 The earliest mosaics in
Palestine were found at Tel Anafa, the acropolis of a large city in the Upper Galilee
whose ancient name is unknown to us.265 These mosaics, unfortunately extremely
fragmented, included geometric and floral patterns, as well as figurative motifs. Some of
these fragments were found amongst remains of Hellenistic style stucco and frescoes.266
The only complete mosaic from Tel Anafa is composed of black and white tesserae.
Bands of black tesserae divide the mosaic into three unequal panels, each containing a
different geometric pattern. The excavators found a close parallel to this mosaic in the
contemporaneous Hellenistic site of Delos, perhaps suggesting some kind of a shared
artistic and cultural milieu between these places.267 A similar motif is found in the
mosaics of the Hasmonean palace at Jericho (c. 63 BCE – 40 BCE), suggesting common
stylistic elements throughout elite Palestine [see Fig. 22].268
Differing significantly from the previous two examples, but from the same time
period, are the mosaics found at Tel Dor [see Fig. 21], a port city along the northern coast
of Palestine. These mosaics date to around the second century BCE and depict a theater
263
264
Ibid., 7.
265
Sharon C. Herbert, Tel Anafa I: Final Report on the Ten Years of Excavation at a Hellenistic and
Roman Settlement in Northern Israel (Ann Arbor, MI: Kelsey Museum, 1994).
266
Ibid.
267
Ibid.
268
80
mask within a garland of fruits and flowers. Excavators and subsequent scholars have
suggested that this mask was part of an elaborate frame of a now-missing emblema.269
This mosaic is of higher quality than the ones found at Tel Anafa and Jericho: the density
of the mosaic varies from 900 to 1,600 tesserae/dm2, and its materials include limestone,
marble, and glass, the latter two materials very rare in Palestinian mosaics.270 This level
of quality, as well as the plaster from the bedding (which is thought be from the city of
Rome), has led scholars to believe that this mosaic was imported from a major Italian
Hellenistic city, suggesting a positive reception and conscious desire of artistic styles
from the west.271
Mosaic floors from the Herodian (early Roman) period continued Hellenistic
period traditions of geometric and floral designs, but moved away from figural motifs,
with the exception of some animals, such as the dolphin depicted in the first century CE
floor at Beth Shean [Fig. 29].272 Almost no mosaics produced in the second century CE
remain, but the plethora of mosaics dating to the third century attest to the fact that
mosaic production continued uninterrupted.273 Scholars have noted an adherence to the
Hellenistic traditions of mythological themes, naturalistically rendered figures and the
use of emblemata in third-century Palestinian floor mosaics.274 The most notable example
from this period is the mosaic floor of the house of Dionysus at Sepphoris. One of the
269
Andrew Stewart and S. Rebecca Martin, “Hellenistic Discoveries at Tel Dor, Israel,” Hesperia 72
(2003): 132-138.
Scholars have cited other similar examples such as the entrance panel attached to the main threshold in the
House of the Faun at Pompeii and in Palace V at Pergamon.
270
Stewart and Martin, “Hellenistic Discoveries at Tel Dor, Israel,” 134.
271
272
Amihai Mazar, Excavations at Tel Beth-Shean.
273
274
Ibid., 27.
81
most distinctive elements of this mosaic is its use of quasi-emblemata, which was
characteristic of the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. The composition of the
quasi-emblemata at the House of Dionysus at Sepphoris created a mosaic that was not
confined to a single focus, but instead obliged the viewer to change their position of
observation to properly see each scene.275 Scholars such as Lavin have regarded this
composition, in which each scene is individual, yet balanced by the others surrounding it,
as an expression of Hellenistic tradition during the Roman Empire.276
The Byzantine Period (late fourth century through the eighth century) saw a
flourishing of floor mosaics in the particularly religious settings of synagogues and
churches.277 From the much larger corpus of mosaics available, scholars have been able
to identify main compositional elements: inhabited vine and acanthus scrolls, geometric
carpets containing figures, and carpets of free figures without any internal framing.278
Scholars such as Talgam have suggested a general trend in mosaic art from the
Hellenistic period to the Byzantine period as being characterized by a gradual distancing
from the illusionistic emblemata and quasi-emblemata panels of the Hellenistic period to
a preference for carpet mosaics in the Byzantine Period.279 However, there is not a clear
distinction between periods, and in fact many elements from the earliest Hellenistic
period mosaics in Palestine continue to be used in much later mosaics.
275
Eric M. Meyers, Ehud Netzer and Carol L. Meyers, “Artistry in Stone: The Mosaics of Ancient
Sepphoris,” The Biblical Archaeologist 50 (1987): 227.
276
Irving Lavin, “The Hunting Mosaics of Antioch and Their Sources: A Study of Compositional
Principles in the Development of Early Mediaeval Style.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 17 (1963): 179-286.
277
278
279
82
Instead of dividing mosaic production based on stylistic elements and the
governing imperial body––categories that are rarely as clearly defined as scholars suggest
and favor a top-down, center-periphery model that does not account for Jewish
autonomy––I will analyze the mosaics at Wadi Hamam and Huqoq in an attempt to
undermine these typologies. Beyond the simple fact that defining style by time period
(and vice versa) often yields problematic results—for example, the old dating chronology
for Galilean synagogues was based on style and has since been debunked—applying the
terms “Hellenistic,” “Roman(ized),” and “Byzantine” to mosaics produced by and for
Jews in their land does more than simply describe which time period they were produced
in or which styles they were emulating.280 These labels presuppose and further the
concept that the local Jewish populations lacked agency, autonomy, and local traditions,
and that they were simply copying the styles of whichever polity claimed colonial control
over them at a given time. This notion is certainly challenged in Palestine as the
Patriarchate was still in power until later in the Byzantine period, and while there are
certainly similarities in stylistic features and details, the use of those modes of
representation would have been understood differently in their Jewish contexts in
Palestine than in cities such as Athens, Pergamon, Rome, or Constantinople.281 Therefore,
this thesis is attempting to move beyond the underlying implications of these labels and
to think critically about how the artisans and patrons at Khirbet Wadi Hamam and Huqoq
280
M. Avi-Yonah, Art in Ancient Palestine: Selected Studies.
Erwin R. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period.
281
Dennis E. Groh, “Jews and Christians in Late Roman Palestine: Towards a New Chronology,” The
Biblical Archaeologist 51 (June 1988): 80-96.
83
were using these artistic styles to say something about themselves as Jewish
communities.
There was certainly a connection between Hellenized culture and the Jewish elite
in Palestine. In fact, Amoraic Rabbis, most notably Rabbi Yohanan (third century), the
leading rabbi of his generation, held very lenient views on Hellenistic culture and objects
typically thought to be associated with idolatry.282 Sources indicate that Rabbi Yohanan
guided Jewish craftsmen to ensure they remained within what constituted permissible
artworks, and was, in general, very lenient.283 Additionally, it was thought acceptable to
give one’s children, including one’s daughters, a Greek education and to translate the
Torah into Greek.284 According to the Babylonian Talmud, the study of Greek language
and culture was necessary for their role as the official representatives of the Jewish
community to the Roman Empire.285 This could suggest that Hellenistic cultural
practices, specifically art and language, were not only allowed, but also encouraged as a
method of gaining power and opportunity.
While the rabbinate allowed the study of Greek language, the Patriarchate more
fully embraced Hellenism by surrounding itself with the families of wealthy Hellenized
Jews.286 Of course, Rabbis and Patriarchs did not always see eye-to-eye with one another
and often clashed over representational arts and the beautification of religious
buildings.287 Patriarchs attracted wealthy Hellenized individuals, who often became art
patrons for synagogues in major cities such as Tiberias, and their Hellenistic cultural
282
Baumgarten, “Art in the Synagogue: Some Talmudic Views,” 76.
283
284
285
Ibid., 77.
286
287
84
preferences are clearly exposed in the inclusion of Helios in the synagogue mosaic at
Hammath Tiberias [Fig. 30].288 However, certain rabbis, the most vocal of whom being
Rabbi Mani and Rabbi Osha’ya (fourth century), understood the resources necessary for
creating these artworks as directly taking away money and resources for scholarship and
study, and were distinctly critical of excessive ornamentation of synagogues.289 It is thus
clear that Palestine, and the Galilee in particular, was operating as a middle ground; the
Roman colonial authority allowed the Jewish legalistic body to continue exerting its
power over the Jewish population, while the local elite circles adopted, adapted, and often
criticized, certain cultural practices and styles that were considered to be signs of wealth
and prestige by the colonizers.290
Hellenistic and Roman ideas and visual culture made their way into Palestine,
albeit not without controversy and its critics. As there was not a clear consensus
regarding Greco-Roman models in synagogues amongst the scholarly elite in major
cities, one certainly cannot assume a consensus amongst the villages and their patrons;
each community likely viewed or understood Hellenistic or Roman styles in its art, or
even the inclusion of figural imagery, differently than its neighbors. However, it is clear
from a strictly visual standpoint that the mosaics in villages such as Huqoq and Khirbet
Wadi Hamam utilized those stylistic developments from the Hellenistic and Roman
periods. Therefore, what is more vital than completely disregarding these labels is to use
them carefully and with the awareness that each community likely held a different
288
Magness, “Heaven on Earth: Helios and the Zodiac Cycle in Ancient Palestinian Synagogues,” 1-52.
Levine, Visual Judaism in Late Antiquity, 243-259, 317-336.
Shulamit Miller, “Tiberias during the Roman, Byzantine and Early Islamic Periods,” Masters Thesis, The
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2011.
289
290
85
understanding of these traditions; while some might have consciously used them as
references to those cultures, it is just as likely that the choice to use particular stylistic
elements had little to do with the specific history, society, or culture of these civilizations.
A Postcolonial Khirbet Wadi Hamam and Horvat Huqoq
Moving away from a fixed application of problematic stylistic labels such as
“Late Roman” and “Byzantine” permits a more nuanced analysis of these mosaics within
their particular settings. The Samson mosaic at Khirbet Wadi Hamam was created in the
Late Roman period (c. 280-300 CE), and, according to the typology established by
previous scholars, one would expect to find a carpet mosaic.291 However, a quasi-
emblemata composition was chosen instead, a feature that has led scholars such as
Talgam to call the mosaic pavement at Khirbet Wadi Hamam “exceptional in its
compositional perception.”292 She further postulates that such a deviation from the norm
can be explained as a transfer of the composition of pictorial panels such as the wall
paintings at the Dura Europos synagogue [Fig. 31] to a floor mosaic.293 The Dura
Europos synagogue underwent a massive renovation and was dedicated in 244/45,
roughly half a century before the synagogue at Wadi Hamam was constructed.294
However, despite the temporal proximity, the two villages lie some 650 kilometers apart,
291
Talgam, Mosaics of Faith, 26-76 and 260-264.
292
Ibid., 433.
293
Ibid., 433.
294
Shalom Sabar, “The Purim Panel at Dura: A Socio-Historical Interpretation,” in From Dura to
Sepphoris: Studies in Jewish Art and Society in Late Antiquity, ed. Lee I. Levine and Ze’ev Weiss
(Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2000), 158-159.
86
and therefore would not have likely been in dialogue with one another.295 Additionally,
this attribution does not take into account local traditions, desires or choices; instead of
placing the composition within a larger, rather tenuous, typological framework as Talgam
suggests, the compositional choice of the mosaic pavement of Wadi Hamam’s synagogue
should be analyzed from a local perspective.
The composition of Samson Smiting the Philistines with the Jawbone of an Ass
can most closely be compared stylistically to the David mosaic at the Galilean synagogue
at Meroth, although this mosaic dates to the fifth century [See Fig. 14].296 Both mosaics
are quasi-emblemata surrounded by a guilloche border and were part of aisle decorations.
Although the Meroth mosaic dates later than Wadi Hamam, the close connection of the
compositions suggest a local affinity towards the use of such layouts that continued for
many generations. The use of emblemata and quasi-emblemata compositions, as
mentioned above, were common in Hellenistic period mosaics, as well as early Roman
pavements.297 Thus, the composition of the Khirbet Wadi Hamam Samson mosaic recalls
the traditional composition of elite, domestic mosaics.
The figures in Samson Smiting the Philistines with the Jawbone of an Ass, in
contrast with the Hellenistic-period composition, lack a sense of modeling in the bodies,
thus flattening the figures, as well as an absence of a strong sense of a physical setting.
When compared to the mosaics in the House of Dionysus at Sepphoris, these differences
become even more apparent. This is seen most clearly in the Wadi Hamam mosaic with
295
There is evidence of visitors to Dura Europos, but it is very unlikely that the city would have had direct
contact with cities or villages in the Galilee. Sabar, “The Purim Panel at Dura,” 162.
296
Rachel Hachlili, Ancient Mosaic Pavements: Themes, Issues, and Trends (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 78-79.
297
Kitzinger, “Stylistic Developments in Pavement Mosaics in the Greek East from the Age of
Constantine to the Age of Justinian,” 64-88.
87
the depiction of the two dead Philistines under the legs of Samson, who appear to be
floating in mid-air. This lack of three-dimensionality and grounded setting, as well as
other details such as Samson’s tunic (which has been identified as that of a Roman of
Byzantine soldier) deviates from the more traditional treatment emblemata scenes.298
Additionally, the appearance of blood and wounds is not part of traditional Greek visual
culture, and suggests a deviation from the norm, as well as emphasizing the violence of
the scene.299 Therefore, while the composition of the Khirbet Wadi Hamam Samson
mosaics recall the floor mosaics of elite domestic structures from the Hellenistic and
early Roman periods, the treatment of the figures and setting, as well as the details of
clothing and blood, are combined to create something outside of both traditions; the
Samson mosaic at Wadi Hamam can be understood as a hybrid—a combination of
Hellenistic and Roman visual models that became something new under a different
culture’s production.
The Samson mosaics at Huqoq are similar to the Samson scene at Wadi Hamam
in that the scenes are divided into emblemata and share the detail of Samson’s costume,
as well as a flattening of three-dimensional space. However, the Huqoq mosaics differ
from those at Wadi Hamam in that the scenes are more focused, with significantly fewer
figures. The Wadi Hamam mosaic is a more dynamic scene: the characters and their
interactions work together to capture a moment in the story. On the other hand, the
Samson mosaics at Huqoq have condensed the scenes of Samson’s life, focusing more on
the actions of Samson. In a similar manner to the Wadi Hamam mosaics, Samson in
298
299
Andrew Stewart, Attalos, Athens, and the Akropolis: The Pergamene “Little Barbarians” and Their
Roman and Renaissance Legacy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004) 166-170.
88
Huqoq was depicted rather flatly, with minimal modeling to his face or hands, and with
features such as Samson’s round, youthful face, and delineated locks of hair, which
derive from stylistic innovations of the Hellenistic period.300 I believe that the villagers of
Huqoq consciously chose to depict Samson in this particular, more simplistic, non-
Classical style in order to differentiate the Samson mosaics from the mosaics further
down the aisle and rotated 180 degrees.301
The Maccabee mosaic and the mosaic with the women’s faces and inscription
were laid out with a different orientation than the Samson mosaics, and with a distinctly
different focus in style. The change in direction between the two sets of synagogues
recalls compositions such as the mosaics of the House of Dionysus, the scenes of which
rotated around a single axis, obliging the viewer to change their position in order to
properly see each scene.302 However, instead of connecting the mosaics in one
composition, as at Sepphoris, this shift clearly delineates the mosaics at Huqoq, creating
two separate groups of mosaics. Thus, from here I will refer to the two Samson mosaics
as the Samson Group, and the faces/inscription mosaic and the Maccabee mosaic as the
Maccabee Group. The change in orientation of the mosaics is not the only distinction
between the two groups, but instead marks a shift in stylistic focus as well.
300
R.R.R. Smith, Hellenistic Sculpture: A Handbook (London: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 1991), 7-154.
301
I would like to thank Dr. Stephanie Langin-Hooper who pointed out that this is a particularly interesting
stylistic choice as the tradition of figural mosaics arrives in Palestine after Classic “naturalism,” with
rounded, modeled bodies and faces, and a strong understanding of space and ground within the scene, is
being utilized. It appears that the Huqoq artisans and/or patrons wanted the Samson mosaics to look
different and not Classical.
302
Eric M Meyers, Ehud Netzer and Carol L. Meyers, “Artistry in Stone: The Mosaics of Ancient
Sepphoris,” 227.
89
In general, the mosaics in the Maccabee Group exhibit more stylistic features and
motifs from the elite mosaics of the Hellenistic period than the Samson Group. The
women’s faces surrounded by a garland of flora clearly evoke the same motif as found in
the Hellenistic period mosaics at Tel Dor, albeit with a far more simplistic composition.
The Maccabee mosaic further north along the aisle similarly exhibits more Hellenistic
period stylistic features. This mosaic was created in registers, with the figures in each
filling the entire space. Unlike the Samson mosaics, there is a clear attempt and interest in
creating a spatial scene for each register, evidenced by ground lines upon which the
figures solidly stand, in both the middle and top register. In addition, the Maccabee
mosaic figures, both animal and human, are rendered much more naturalistically and
individually, as evidenced by the variety of faces and facial expressions in the young men
in the middle register. Unlike the Samson mosaic, much more attention is paid to
modeling the faces, giving the human figures a more naturalistic appearance, although
their bodies continue to be rendered rather flatly. While the emphasis on setting and
modeling of human figures appears to be more Hellenistic, the clothing and hair of the
figures fits into the Roman period stylistically.
Thus, while all of the Samson mosaics, and the Maccabee mosaic at Huqoq,
exhibit features that draw upon visual traditions from the Hellenistic and Roman periods,
neither group of mosaics can be defined as Hellenistic or Roman. They utilize various
elements from both colonizing cultures to create a hybrid form for their own purposes. It
is important to remember that mosaic art is not a Jewish tradition. The art form was
imported during the territorial expansion of the Hellenistic period, then took root in
Palestine in the elite, secular, domestic realm until around the third century, when it
90
transferred to the synagogue––a public space, used for a combination of religious and
secular purposes, but all distinctly Jewish.303 There is the possibility that mosaic floors
existed in synagogues before the third century, but as those buildings were architecturally
the same as domestic dwellings, and therefore are very hard to identify archaeologically,
it is nearly impossible to know.304 Nevertheless, when monumental synagogues began to
emerge, floor mosaic traditions evolved to be suitable to the new space. Therefore, these
mosaics are not only hybrids because they combined Hellenistic and Roman
compositions and stylistic details, but also because those aspects of visual culture were
repurposed for use in a definitively Jewish context with explicitly Jewish motifs and
stories.
The tensions and juxtapositions inherent in the creation of a hybrid visual object
become even more pronounced when comparing the Huqoq Samson Groups to the
Maccabee Group further down the aisle. It is evident that the Huqoq Samson mosaics
were purposefully created with a different stylistic focus—one much more closely related
to the Samson mosaic at Khirbet Wadi Hamam 5 kilometers away and a century apart,
than the mosaic several meters down the aisle. There are no other known examples of
synagogue mosaic pavements in Palestine with such a dramatic internal shift in style.305
Therefore, although both mosaic groups were working within the same cultural milieu
and are both hybrid works, I propose that the artisans and patrons of these mosaics were
303
304
Levine, Lee I. The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years. New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 2000.
305
Ovadiah, Hellenistic, Roman and Early Byzantine Mosaic Pavements in Israel.
91
trying to express two very different concepts and utilized stylistic elements available to
them to make that distinction.
As mentioned in chapter three, the location of the Samson mosaics, in particular
Samson Carrying the Gates of Gaza, occupies a symbolically important space as close to
the bema, as well as being near the entryway, thereby guaranteeing a great number of
people walking on the mosaic.306 The flatness of the figures in the Samson mosaics
suggest that the artist or workshop was very much concerned with the surface and of
understanding the floor as a floor and not an illusionistic space of three-dimensionality.307
Floor mosaics, although now considered masterful works of art, cannot be divorced from
their practical purpose as a smooth surface on which to walk. It is therefore difficult to
compare these scenes with great wall frescos of the synagogue at Dura Europos as the
experience of viewing them was so different.308 Wall paintings and statuary are, for the
most part, located out of reach of an inhabitant of the space; they occupy an unreachable
space, and can therefore be viewed from many different angles and perspectives by a
multitude of people at once. Floor mosaics are extremely different: unlike painting and
sculpture, they occupy the space most connected with human interaction, and indeed the
act of viewing the floor mosaics is inseparable from the physical experience of it.309
Unlike the paintings on the wall, including those at the Dura Europos synagogue, the
images presented on the flat, horizontal surface constantly demand physical contact by
the spectator, thus forcing the viewer’s movement and contact to contribute to the
306
307
Kitzinger, Stylistic Developments in Pavement Mosaics in the Greek East from the Age of
Constantine to the Age of Justinian, 64-88.
308
309
Rebecca Molholt, “Labyrinth Mosaics and the Experience of Motion,” The Art Bulletin 93 (Sept. 2011):
287.
92
creation of the image’s meaning.310 As the mosaic floor is part of the physical surface one
must interact with and traverse in order to occupy the architectural space, the viewer is
more likely to become actively engaged in the images underfoot than those on the wall.311
Therefore, these mosaics speak strongly to the populations that created and interacted
with them, the implications of which I will discuss in the following section.
Why Samson?
Why was Samson included in the floor mosaics of the synagogues at Horvat
Huqoq and Khirbet Wadi Hamam? This is the question with which I began my research
for this thesis. While I do not believe enough information is known or uncovered to
propose a sweeping claim of exactly why Samson was included, I will end my thesis with
conclusions that I hope will aid in the future understanding of the Huqoq mosaics as more
are uncovered in forthcoming seasons of excavation. One of the most striking
characteristics of the mosaics at Huqoq thus far uncovered are the distinctly different
hybrid styles between the Samson Group and the Maccabee Group as outlined above.
While I do believe that the primary purpose of the shift in orientation and change of style
was to differentiate the two mosaic groups, one can press further and ask why one style
was deemed more appropriate for one set of mosaics than the other. Drawing upon Henry
Maguire’s conception of the depictions of saints’ bodies in post-iconoclastic Byzantine
depictions will shed some light on this discrepancy.312
310
Molholt, “Labyrinth Mosaics and the Experience of Motion,” 288.
311
Ibid., 288.
312
Henry Maguire, The Icons of Their Bodies: Saints and Their Images in Byzantium (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2000).
93
Maguire’s book suggests that Byzantine artists chose to use different formal
characteristics, such as movement, modeling, and depth, according to the identity of the
saint and their role in relation to the viewer.313 He makes the claim that the flattened
images of monk-saints and the dynamic posturing of warrior-saints purposefully evoked
different responses and understandings in their viewers.314 While I am certainly not
suggesting that the same level of official control and sanction were being employed in the
Huqoq mosaics, Maguire’s ideas offer a framework with which we can begin to
understand why the mosaics were chosen to be depicted in these certain ways. While we
cannot disregard the possibility that the stylistic disparity was due to two different
patrons with differing tastes—or different artists with differing repertoires––Maguire’s
theories, when appropriately applied to these mosaics, provide a more satisfactory
explanation. Perhaps the reason Samson is depicted in a more reserved style is due to the
fact that he is an important Biblical figure. This explanation is strengthened when one
thinks about the sources of the Maccabee mosaic. The Maccabean revolt is a post-
Biblical story and therefore would be unlikely to hold the same significance to the
congregation as a Biblical Judge.315 Perhaps like the more reserved monk-saints and more
flamboyant warrior-saints of Middle and Late Byzantium, the Huqoq mosaics were
created with purposely different formal qualities to embody the differences in the subjects
being depicted. However, if the Samson mosaics were created with the expectation of a
different reception than the Maccabee Group, the question of how the mosaics were
313
Maguire, The Icons of Their Bodies, 1.
314
Maguire, The Icons of Their Bodies, 196-197.
315
This conjecture stems from the fact that all other known human figural mosaics in Galilean synagogues
are Biblical in subject
94
received and understood by their Jewish audience remains an important one, which I will
return to later in this chapter.
It is important to note here that synagogues were not only houses of worship, but
were also community centers, judicial centers, schools, and places of study.316 Thus,
these mosaics would have also been experienced in a variety of contexts not explicitly
linked to religious practice and liturgy. In fact, one could argue that the synagogue as a
whole was more important as a Jewish cultural institution than a purely religious one.317
This distinction is often lost by scholars who tend to see synagogues, especially during
this time period, to be the Jewish counterpart to Christian churches.318 If we can view the
synagogue as a cultural and communal institution, then perhaps the Samson mosaics, as
well as the other mosaics, could be understood in different ways, depending on the
context in which one occupies the space. Samson could therefore have stood as an
emblem of the apocalyptic fervor in the Galilee, as Grey suggests, when a Rabbi gave a
sermon or recited piyyutim relating to messianic desires.319 He could just as easily,
however, have stood in for the great Judges of the past when the synagogue was being
used for judicial purposes. Perhaps he could even have been understood as a physical
embodiment of the Jewish nation during times of communal meetings as his story and his
mosaics focus so much on his bodily display of identity.320
316
317
Levine, The Ancient Synagogue, 390-411.
Lee I. Levine, “The Patriarch and the Ancient Synagogue,” in Jews, Christians, and Polytheists in the
Ancient Synagogue: Cultural Interaction During the Greco-Roman Period, ed. Steven Fine (New York:
Routledge, 1999) 95-97.
318
It also bears remembering, however, that Christian churches often played multiple societal roles as well.
319
320
Specifically the fact that he is circumcised (which defines him as a Jew) and his hair (which defines him
as a Nazarite). See:
95
Whatever the general style of the mosaic floor at the Huqoq synagogue is (which
is unknown until further excavation is completed), the stylistic differences between the
two groups in the eastern aisle speak to the ways in which the people of Huqoq were
actively and thoughtfully engaged with contemporary artistic trends and practices. I
believe that the Samson mosaics at Huqoq were designed in response to the Samson
mosaics in the synagogue at Khirbet Wadi Hamam. The choice of the Huqoq artisans and
patrons to include scenes from Samson’s life and in them to emphasize certain stylistic
elements deployed at Wadi Hamam, such as a flattening of the figures and a lack of
setting, inextricably links the two villages. It is entirely possible that Samson might have
been a more commonly depicted figure in synagogue mosaics and other decorations than
the extant evidence suggests, but even if this was the case, the marked stylistic
similarities between the two, and the striking difference between the Samson Group and
the Maccabee Group in Huqoq, suggest that the Huqoq Samson mosaics were specifically
drawing upon the depiction of Samson at Wadi Hamam. I am less hesitant to assign the
Wadi Hamam Samson mosaic a more religiously driven significance than the Huqoq
Samson, because the other surviving parts of the mosaic floor, specifically in the aisles,
are Biblical scenes linked by the theme of redemption and salvation, and retain the same
stylistic details. However, because the Huqoq mosaics thus far excavated are not all
Biblical and have very different styles, I do not think that the Huqoq Samson is quite so
easily interpreted.
Gregory Mobley, Samson and the Liminal Hero in the Ancient Near East, (New York: T&T Clark
International, 2006).
Erik Eynikel and Tobias Nicklas, editors, Samson: Hero or Fool? The Many Faces of Samson (Leiden:
Brill, 2014).
96
I argue that Samson’s significance in the synagogue at Huqoq is more complex
than simply a representation of a Biblical figure, and in fact, was included as a statement
of their local, communal Jewish identity. While Samson is certainly a recognizable
Biblical figure, the rest of the mosaics uncovered along the eastern aisle are post-Biblical.
The Maccabee scenes are certainly part of a Jewish history and can be argued to fit into
the theme of salvation. However, the inclusion of a non-Biblical scene is so rare that it
seems that the people of Huqoq were not overly preoccupied with only including strictly
Biblical themes in their mosaics.321 Even the Samson mosaics do not explicitly visualize
the orthodox Biblical narrative; Samson Carrying the Gates of Gaza includes the
horseman figure who is not mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, but could be instead a visual
reference to legendary expansions of Biblical stories, such as those compiled in the Liber
Antiquitatum Biblicarum by Pseudo-Philo. This addition suggests that the Samson
mosaics are not only meant to convey their Biblical subject matter. Why then, include
Samson and why use a style so different than the other mosaics? I believe the answer to
this enigmatic question lays in the relationship between the village of Khirbet Wadi
Hamam and the village of Huqoq.
Huqoq’s synagogue was being erected and decorated at the same time as the
village of Wadi Hamam was being abandoned.322 The sites are located very close to one
another, and as we know that Huqoq had relations with cities such as Tiberias, it is well
within the realm of possibilities that they also were in contact with the other villages in
321
The other obvious examples of non-Biblical scenes are the zodiac cycles, but I believe that those images
are doing something quite different than the panel scenes being discussed here.
322
97
their area of the Galilee, including Khirbet Wadi Hamam.323 If this were the case, then
when the time came to construct their own monumental synagogue, the people of Huqoq
would have known the synagogue and could have turned to Wadi Hamam for inspiration.
As there is no evidence for a monumental synagogue building before the one presently
being discussed, it was likely that the Huqoq was not prosperous enough in previous
generations to build such a structure.324 Thus, including Samson and using the same
visual modes of representation, the mosaics at Huqoq can be seen as an attempt to stake a
claim for Huqoq as the successor, or at least as equal, to village of Khirbet Wadi Hamam.
This is a powerful statement of identity-building, and it emphasizes the importance
placed on local communities and local Jewish identity, which might or might not have
been in line with the “official” Patriarchal or rabbinical understanding of Jewishness.325
Why Wadi Hamam?: The Shared Cultural Milieu of the Galilee
Therefore, the question with which we started—why Samson? —can now be
reframed as why Khirbet Wadi Hamam? What about Khirbet Wadi Hamam would have
been desirable as part of Huqoq’s identity formation in the late fourth or early fifth
century? Both villages were occupied in the Hellenistic period, and in fact, Huqoq is an
older village, with pottery sherds dating from the Early Bronze Age.326 Why then would
the people of Huqoq be compelled to reiterate the visual culture of Khirbet Wadi Hamam
in their own synagogue decoration? I believe the answer is fairly simple: Wadi Hamam
323
324
325
326
98
did it first. Their monumental synagogue, and its mosaics, stood for a century before
Huqoq began constructing theirs. It is possible that if the village of Wadi Hamam was
being abandoned around the same time as Huqoq was becomes a more prosperous village
(as the dating of the site’s respective excavators suggest), some of Wadi Hamam’s
population could have moved to Huqoq. Therefore, the same people who used the
synagogue at Wadi Hamam could have been the same ones involved in building the new
synagogue at Huqoq. If this were the case, then the Samson imagery would have a strong
personal and communal resonance for them. Unfortunately, given the available evidence,
we do not know if Huqoq received an influx of people from Wadi Hamam, but it can still
be argued that by consciously and conspicuously calling upon the hybrid aesthetic of
Khirbet Wadi Hamam, the patrons of the Huqoq synagogue were inserting themselves
into the shared cultural milieu of the Galilee.
This shared cultural milieu derived from a complex history of empire, colonizer,
and colonized. The Hellenistic emperors understood themselves to be the successors of
ancient Greece, and the Seleucid dynasty succeeded in bringing their artistic style to
Palestine.327 However, because Palestine was a Jewish civilization, there was always
some backlash and hesitation when it came to figural images, as discussed in previous
chapters. In the Hellenistic period in Palestine (that is, before the reign of Herod the
Great), mosaics were confined to secular spaces and private residences.328 With the
increased importance of large communal synagogues after the Destruction, floor mosaics
327
Smith, Hellenistic Sculpture, 223-254.
328
99
became one of the most popular forms of decoration in religious structures.329 Rabbis and
Patriarchs, Jewish leaders and scholars, held differing views of the legality of artworks in
synagogues, but despite those debates, Jewish voices were the ones discussing these
issues—not whichever imperial power claimed control of the land.330 Therefore, despite
the similarities in style and composition to either Hellenistic period or Roman period art,
floor mosaics created in Palestine were always conceived of from a Jewish vantage point,
and therefore are far more Jewish than they ever were Hellenistic or Roman. By engaging
with the cultural milieu of the Seleucids and the Romans, who also viewed themselves to
be the true successors of the ancient Greeks, the people of Palestine created a visual
environment that presented the power and efficacy of Hellenistic and Roman styles as
elite symbols. The synagogue mosaics at Khirbet Wadi Hamam participated in this
shared cultural milieu, and I believe this is what attracted the patrons of Huqoq and
prompted them to imitate that particular style in their Samson mosaics.
During early Byzantine period, art in the Galilee, and Palestine more generally,
was moving away from its Hellenistic past, with motifs and techniques becoming more
distinctly Roman and Byzantine. Perhaps the shift in mosaic style in the eastern aisle of
Huqoq was an attempt to claim a connection not only to a biblical Jewish past, with the
figure of Samson, but also an elevated and elite local Jewish history with the Maccabee
mosaic, a story that marked a contest between the Jews and the Seleucids. The people of
Huqoq thus conflated multiple identities in their hybridized mosaics. They depicted great
heroes of the Jewish past (Samson and the Maccabees) in the style of the art of their
329
Ibid., 77-342.
330
100
colonizers, both Greek and Roman. However, by consciously choosing certain elements
of Hellenistic art (specifically the composition of the Samson mosaics) and Roman art
(for example, the costumes in all of the mosaics), as well as a rare motif from another
local Jewish community, they created something distinctly Jewish in order to claim their
place within the shared cultural milieu of the elite Galilee. By combining the elite identity
of their colonizers with their own religious and cultural past through the utilization of
Greco-Roman artistic traditions, which had long been an important aspect to the Jewish
governing body of the Patriarchate and the urban elite, the mosaics of Huqoq embodied
the strength and power of their past Jewish identity.
This strength is shown in the juxtaposition of the bloodiness of the lowest register
of the Maccabee mosaic, with the quiet dignity of the men in the middle register, who all
hold scrolls—the Maccabees were both powerful warriors and careful scholars. This story
was directly part of their colonized past, and by portraying a victorious Jewish scene in
the style of their past oppressors, the mosaic makes a powerful statement regarding the
power of Jewish identity. The strength and resilience of the Jewish identity is also
physically embodied in Samson. His God-given strength is represented in Huqoq by the
ease with which he lifts the Gates of Gaza, as well as by his gigantic stature, although the
most visible marker of his long hair is missing in favor of a short, wild, more Hellenistic
style coiffure.331 The choice to not depict Samson with long hair, but instead in a more
Greek style, even further propels the claim of Jewish strength. By not relying on biblical
details to portray Samson’s divine strength, this aspect is internalized and in turn,
331
This is similar in fact to the way the Greeks depicted their enemies, the Gauls. See Smith, Hellenistic
Scultpure, 99-104.
101
understood as an integral part of the Jewish people, not an external feature. These
mosaics together, and the Samson mosaic in particular, powerfully utilize local, Jewish,
and colonial visual traditions to insert themselves into the local history of the Galilee,
which is inextricably tied with the global history of two great empires.
102
Chapter 6
CONCLUSION
The synagogue floor mosaics recently uncovered in the Galilean village of Horvat
Huqoq present a rare opportunity for the study of local communal interactions and
identity building. This is due to the discovery of a rare motif found exclusively in the
synagogue floor mosaics of Huqoq and the nearby village of Khirbet Wadi Hamam:
Samson from the Book of Judges. The inclusion of Samson is unprecedented in Jewish
art in Palestine, and therefore has piqued scholars’ interest.332 In the excavation season
following the discovery of Samson (2012), another mosaic was uncovered at Huqoq
depicting a non-Biblical scene thought to be from the story of the Maccabees.333 After
only four seasons of excavation, and only the eastern aisle excavated, Huqoq stands out
as a unique synagogue.334 Not only were the scenes unparalleled or very rare, the stylistic
shift and physical re-orientation between the Samson Group and the Maccabee Group is
unprecedented among Galilean synagogues. Khirbet Wadi Hamam is a village in the
Eastern Galilee, and was occupied between 80 BCE and the late fourth or early fifth
332
Additionally, the Huqoq finds have garnered a lot of general media attention.
333
Magness, et al., “Huqoq – 2013” 4-6.
334
103
century CE.335 The excavations, led by Dr. Uzi Leibner, uncovered a late third century
monumental synagogue with an extremely fragmented mosaic floor.336 Among the
mosaic fragments remaining, and central to this study, is the scene of Samson Smiting the
Philistines with the Jawbone of an Ass. Horvat Huqoq is another village in the Eastern
Galilee, and was occupied from roughly 3000 BCE until 1948, and flourished during the
fourth and fifth centuries as a prosperous Jewish village.337 The excavations at Huqoq are
ongoing, and thus far the most remarkable mosaics found are two scenes from the life of
Samson—Samson Carrying the Gates of Gaza and Samson and the Foxes—and a
conflation of scenes from the story of the Maccabees.338 The study of these mosaics by
other scholars has been focused on the religious significance of the inclusion of Samson
in the synagogues at Huqoq and Khirbet Wadi Hamam.339 However, a striking feature
that has yet to be fully explored in these mosaics is the stylistic choices and connections
between the two villages.
Studies of Jewish mosaics in Palestine have largely relegated discussions of style
to the beginning of the scholarly work in order to place the mosaic temporally within the
categories of “Hellenistic,” “Roman,” and “Byzantine.”340 This categorization is
symptomatic of internalized biases in the study of Jewish art, including the notion that
Jews are artless and could only copy the art of others, and that Jewish art is only
335
336
337
338
339
340
104
important insofar as it is the basis for Christian art.341 In general, the study of Jewish art
has been Hellenocentric and Christocentric, robbing the Jewish peoples who
commissioned and created these artworks of their agency. The biases in the scholarship
of Jewish art align closely with the biases of the Orientalist approach to art history during
the heyday of European colonialism. Therefore, in an attempt to understand the local
drive and implications behind the creation of these mosaics, this thesis approached the
mosaics of Wadi Hamam and Huqoq from a postcolonial framework. Heavily influenced
by Homi Bhabha’s notions of hybridity and Chris Gosden’s work on the central role
material culture plays in colonial encounters, this thesis suggests that the mosaics can
best be understood as conscious cultural hybrids.342
This theoretical framework is particularly suited to this study as the cultural
context of the two synagogues was itself a hybridized space. Palestine was long under
control of external empires, most notably the Hellenistic kingdoms, the Romans, and,
briefly, the Byzantines. However, throughout all of those colonizing efforts, Palestine,
and in particular the Galilee, remained vastly Jewish, and mostly autonomous. Mosaics
were imported from the Hellenistic kingdoms and took root in Palestine during that
period, one of the earliest examples being a mosaic actually transported from a major
Hellenistic city.343 Until the third century, mosaic floors were generally confined to the
domestic structures of the wealthy elite, both Jewish and non-Jewish.344 With the rise of
341
Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period.
For a critical discussion of these issues see Levine, Visual Judaism in Late Antiquity,
342
Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 66-84.
343
344
Ibid., 7-67.
105
the importance of the synagogue as a separate, communal institution, floor mosaics began
to be commissioned for the synagogue. Thus, floor mosaics in Palestine went from being
an individual sign of elite status and wealth to a communal sign of prosperity in a
specifically and definitively Jewish context. Thus, by simply expanding the spaces in
which floor mosaics were considered appropriate to include communal and religious
spaces, the practice became hybrid. Floor mosaics were no longer only a sign of
individual or familial elitism, as evidenced by a visual connection to Greco-Roman
culture in one’s home, but had also become a signifier of communal wealth in an
explicitly non-Greco-Roman setting.
The Jewish Patriarch and rabbinate had complex relationships with Hellenistic
cultural practices that pervaded the wealthy class.345 The rabbis were far more cautious in
their acceptance of Hellenistic cultural practices, in particular the creation of art, but
ultimately allowed the study of the Greek language and certain art forms, including floor
mosaics, were deemed acceptable.346 The Patriarchate, the legal body of the Jews of
Palestine, was far more open to the infiltration of Hellenistic culture, and often
surrounded himself with Hellenized Jews, who were wealthy patrons.347 Additionally,
many understood the study of Greco-Roman culture and language to be essential in order
to fulfill their duties as the Jewish representative to the Roman emperor.348 However, the
345
346
Cohen, Structures of Communal Politics in Early Rabbinic Jewry.
Lapin, Rabbis as Romans: The Rabbinic Movement in Palestine.
347
Baumgarten, “Art in the Synagogue: Some Talmudic Views.”
348
Levine, “The Patriarchate and the Ancient Synagogue, 87-97.
Linder, The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation, 186-189, 196-197, 201-204, 204-211, 215-217, 220-222,
224-225.
106
Patriarchate and the rabbinate existed outside the realm of the village; they did not often
venture out of the city, and it is unclear how much influence either the Patriarch or the
rabbis had over the Jewish villages. Thus, trying to analyze the mosaics from a
patriarchal or rabbinical perspective would undermine the local nature of the
synagogue.349
While the simple inclusion of mosaics in synagogues is inherently a hybrid
practice, and tied up in the relationship between Hellenistic culture and the elite, the more
obvious hybridity in the mosaics of Huqoq and Wadi Hamam is their style. Both
synagogues utilize stylistic elements and details that do not necessarily fit into the
categories of “Late Roman” and “Byzantine,” that scholars have given them. In fact, both
synagogue mosaics have strong Hellenistic period influences, the most apparent of which
is their composition. While the Wadi Hamam Samson mosaic and the Huqoq Samson
mosaics are very similar in terms of style, particularly the flatness of the characters and
the focus on one scene per panel, the Maccabee Group stands in sharp contrast. Although
also a stylistic hybrid, the Maccabee mosaic is very different than the Huqoq Samson. I
argue that the Huqoq Samson Group was consciously depicted in a way that evoked and
connected the Samson mosaics at Wadi Hamam in order to establish Huqoq as an equal,
or successor to the failing village, while the Maccabee Group asserted a more
contemporary Jewish identity.
Thus, in choosing to include mosaic floors in their monumental synagogue, the
people of Huqoq were asserting their elite status in an environment where Hellenistic
cultural practices, and mosaic floors in particular, had been signs of wealth and status for
349
107
centuries. Additionally the choice of Samson, in both motif and style, linked Huqoq to a
previously powerful and wealthy town, establishing their importance within a local
Galilean Jewish history. More important however, was the conscious and conspicuous
usage and manipulation of the art of their colonizers. The shift in styles in the Huqoq
synagogue signals a very conscious understanding of using Greco-Roman visual culture,
not in the way the emperors would, but instead, in order to construct their own Jewish
identity as elite and powerful.
The distinction with which the Huqoq Samson mosaics were designed, and their
purposeful emulation of the Khirbet Wadi Hamam Samson mosaic, suggest that the
patrons of the Huqoq synagogue were very concerned with establishing themselves as
active participants in the visual cultural milieu of the Galilee, and thus in creating a local
Jewish identity that at once embraces past Jewish history and identities, but is at the same
time a consciously contemporary identity that takes into account the complex social and
cultural relationships of the wider world. Samson, therefore, and the way he is depicted in
the Huqoq synagogue using a Hellenistic composition, but Roman pictorial details (both
of which were a Jewish precedent in the Wadi Hamam mosaic), stands as the
embodiment, and reminder of, their Biblical Jewish identity, and their colonized Galilean
past and present. This multitude of identities and influences are combined in the Samson
mosaic and create a distinct claim to Jewish identity by the people of Huqoq: not only do
they embrace their powerful Jewish past, but by sharing and manipulating the cultural
milieu of their past and current colonizers, they appropriated that elite imperial power,
turning it into a marker of their own local Jewish identity.
108
FIGURES
Fig 1 Samson Smiting the Philistines with the Jawbone of an Ass, c.280-300 CE, floor
mosaic, 214 x 141 cm, the synagogue of Khirbet Wadi Hamam, Lower Galilee, Israel,
(photograph courtesy of Israel Museum, Jerusalem).
109
Fig 2 Samson Carrying the Gates of Gaza, late 4th/early 5th century, floor mosaic, the
synagogue of Horvat Huqoq, Lower Galilee, Israel (photograph by J. Haberman, and
provided by Jodi Magness et al. “Huqoq and its Synagogue Mosaics,” 344, Figure 14).
Fig 3 Samson and the Foxes, late 4th/early 5th century, floor mosaic, the synagogue of
Horvat Huqoq, Lower Galilee, Israel (photograph by J. Haberman, and provided by Jodi
Magness et al. “Huqoq and its Synagogue Mosaics,” 345, Figure 16).
110
Fig 4 Synagogue floor mosaic of Hammath Tiberias, c. 3rd/4th century, floor mosaic,
Tiberias, Lower Galilee, Israel (photograph provided by Talgam, Mosaics of Faith, 265,
Figure 338).
111
Fig 5 Synagogue floor mosaic of Beth Alpha, c. 6th century, floor mosaic, near Beth
She’an, Jezreel Valley, Israel (public image).
112
Fig 6 Sepphoris synagogue mosaic, c. 5th century, Tzippori National Archaeological Park,
Israel, drawing of mosaic in the nave (image provided by Weiss and Netzer, “The
Synagogue Mosaic,” in Sepphoris in Galilee: Crosscurrents of Culture, 135, Figure 67).
113
Fig 7 Map of Lower Galilee (image provided by Grey and Magness, “Finding Samson in
Byzantine Galilee,” 3).
Fig 8 The Construction of Solomon’s Temple, c.280-300 CE floor mosaic, c. 194 x 130
cm, the synagogue of Khirbet Wadi Hamam, Lower Galilee, Israel (photograph provided
by Leibner and Miller, “A Figural Mosaic in the Synagogue at Khirbet Wadi Hamam,”
253, Color Figure A).
114
Fig 9 The Drowning of Pharaoh’s Army in the Red Sea, c.280-300 CE, floor mosaic, 210
x 60 cm, the synagogue of Khirbet Wadi Hamam, Lower Galilee, Israel (photograph
provided by Talgam, Mosaics of Faith, 263, Figure 337).
Fig 10 The synagogue of Khirbet Wadi Hamam, floor plan with preserved mosaic
fragments indicated in gray (image provided by Leibner and Miller “A Figural Mosaic in
the Synagogue at Khirbet Wadi Hamam,” 239, Figure 1).
115
Fig 11 The synagogue of Horvat Huqoq, remains, floor plan, and section, (image
provided by Magness, et al. “Huqoq – 2013,” Figure 5).
116
Fig 12 Samson Smiting the Philistines, 4th century CE, fresco, Via Latina Catacombs,
Rome (photograph provided by the Image Database for Biblical Studies, Yale Divinity
School).
Fig 13 Samson Slaying the Philistines, 879-883 CE, illuminated manuscript, The Homilies
of Gregory of Nazianzus, Paris, gr. 510 folio 347v, Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris
(photograph provided by The Index of Christian Art).
117
Fig 14 King David Surrounded by his Weapons, late 5th century CE, floor mosaic, the
synagogue of Meroth, Upper Galilee, Israel (photograph courtesy of Talgam, Mosaics of
Faith, 324, Figure 402).
Fig 15 Site map of Huqoq, created by J. Bucko, courtesy of Magness et al. “Huqoq and
its Synagogue Mosaics,” 330, Figure 1).
118
Fig 16 Women’s Faces with Inscription, late 4th/early 5th century, floor mosaic, the
Fig 17 Detail, Northern Women’s Face, late 4th/early 5th century, floor mosaic, the
119
Fig 18 The Maccabees, late 4th/early 5th century, floor mosaic, the synagogue of Horvat
Huqoq, Lower Galilee, Israel (photograph provided by Magness, et al. “Huqoq – 2013,”
Figure 14).
Fig 19 Eastern Aisle showing Samson and the Foxes and Women’s Faces with
Inscription, late 4th/early 5th century, floor mosaic and synagogue walls, the synagogue of
Horvat Huqoq, Lower Galilee, Israel (photograph by J. Haberman, and provided by Jodi
Magness et al. “Huqoq and its Synagogue Mosaics,” 344, Figure 15).
120
Fig 20 Mikveh, Horvat Huqoq, Lower Galilee, Israel, (photograph by J. Haberman, and
Fig 21Theater Mask Embedded in Rich Garland, 2nd century BCE, floor mosaic Tel Dor,
Israel (photograph provided by Talgam, Mosaics of Faith, 8, Figure 1).
121
Fig 22 Geometric mosaic, c. 63-40 BCE, Hasmonean Palace, Jericho (photograph
provided by Talgam, Mosaics of Faith, 10, Figure 4).
Fig 23 The Drinking Contest of Dionysus and Herakles, c. 100 CE, floor mosaic, Roman
triclinium (dining room), Antioch (photograph provided by The Worcester Art Museum).
122
Fig 24 Hunting Scene, early 6th century, floor mosaic, villa at Daphne, Antioch
(photograph provided by The Worcester Art Museum).
Fig 25 Dionysiac mosaic, early 3rd century, floor mosaic, triclinium (dining room), House
of Dionysus, Sepphoris, Lower Galilee, Israel (photograph provided by C. Meyers, E.
Meyers, Netzer and Weiss, “The Dionysus Mosaic,” in Sepphoris in Galilee:
Crosscurrents of Culture, 112, Figure 47).
123
Fig 26 Orpheus mosaic, late 3rd century, floor mosaic, triclinium (dining room), House of
Orpheus, Sepphoris, Lower Galilee, Israel (photograph provided by Talgam, Mosaics of
Faith, 60, Figure 85).
Fig 27 Site Map of Khirbet Wadi Hamam (image provided by Leibner, “Excavations at
Khirbet Wadi Hamam,” 220, Figure 2).
124
Fig 28 Building Solomon’s Temple, Quedlinburg Itala, c. 420-430 CE, illuminated
manuscript, old Latin translation of Bible, Rome, Cod. theol. lat. fol. 4r, Staatsbibliothek
Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin. (drawing provided by Leibner and Miller, “A Figural
Mosaic in the Synagogue at Khirbet Wadi Hamam,” 248, Figure 3).
Fig 29 Dolphin, early 1st century, floor mosaic, Beth She’an, Jezreel Valley, Israel
(photograph provided by Talgam, Mosaics of Faith, 20, Figure 23).
125
Fig 30 Detail, Zodiac and Helios, synagogue mosaic of Hammath Tiberias, c. 3rd/4th
century, floor mosaic, Tiberias, Lower Galilee, Israel (photograph provided by author)
Fig 31 Dura Europos synagogue wall paintings, c. 244 CE, tempura over plaster,
synagogue at Dura Europos, Syria (public image)
126
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Judging Samson The Synagogue Floor Mosaic

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JUDGING SAMSON: THE SYNAGOGUE FLOOR MOSAICS OF

HORVAT HUQOQ AND KHIRBET WADI HAMAM

HORVAT HUQOQ AND KHIRBET WADI HAMAM

A Thesis Presented to the Graduate Faculty of

Meadows School of the Arts

Southern Methodist University

Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the degree of

Major in Art History

(B.A., Art History & Archaeology, Washington University in St. Louis)

May 16, 2015

All Rights Reserved

Judging Samson: The Synagogue Floor Mosaics of

Advisor: Dr. Pamela Patton

Master of Arts conferred May 16, 2015

Thesis completed May 4, 2015.

identity found expression in these mosaic pavements.

The first section of this thesis establishes the shortcomings in previous

scholarship on Jewish mosaics in Palestine, specifically in the use of problematic labels

themselves as powerful participants in the Roman empire.

LIST OF FIGURES vii

2. JEWISH MOSAICS: A NEW APPROACH

3. HORVAT HUQOQ: THE SITE AND THE SYNAGOGUE

4. KHIRBET WADI HAMAM: SAMSON IN THE GALILEE

5. SAMSON’S GALILEE: CONSTRUCTING A

1. Samson Smiting the Philistines with the Jawbone of an Ass,

2. Samson Carrying the Gates of Gaza, late 4th/early 5th century,

4. Synagogue floor mosaic of Hammath Tiberias, c. 3rd/4th

5. Synagogue floor mosaic of Beth Alpha, c. 6th century, floor

6. Sepphoris synagogue mosaic, c. 5th century, Tzippori National

7. Map of Lower Galilee, courtesy of Grey and Magness. 2

8. The Construction of Solomon’s Temple, c.280-300 CE floor

9. The Drowning of Pharaoh’s Army in the Red Sea, c.280-300

11. The synagogue of Horvat Huqoq, floor plan, created by S.

13. Samson Slaying the Philistines, 879-883 CE, illuminated

15. Site map of Huqoq, created by J. Bucko, courtesy of Magness

20. Mikveh, Horvat Huqoq, Lower Galilee, Israel, courtesy of J.

21. Theater Mask Embedded in Rich Garland, 2nd century BCE,

22. Geometric mosaic, c. 63-40 BCE, Hasmonean Palace, Jericho. 50

25. Dionysiac mosaic, early 3rd century, floor mosaic, triclinium

26. Orpheus mosaic, late 3rd century, floor mosaic, triclinium

27. Site Map of Khirbet Wadi Hamam, courtesy of Leibner. 58

28. Building Solomon’s Temple, Quedlinburg Itala, c. 420-430 CE,

30. Detail, Zodiac and Helios, synagogue mosaic of Hammath

31. Dura Europos synagogue wall paintings, c. 244 CE, tempura

an innovative analytic framework to my work. I am thankful to Dr. Mark Chancey who

information from his upcoming publication.

throughout my time at SMU. I would like to thank my classmates, especially my fellow

found expression in these mosaic pavements.

remains of a late third-century monumental synagogue at the site included a heavily

of an Ass (Judges 15) [see Fig. 1].8

figure of Samson occupies roughly two-thirds of the composition and is depicted in

feet: a shield, a sword, and a spear.

surrounded by a triple guilloche border and is constructed from an average of 152–178

various shades of pinks, white, blue-gray, yellow-ochre, reds, and black.15

reds and pinks, blue, blue-grays, browns, grays, and black.

seven-day marriage feast with thirty Philistines in attendance. Samson proposed an

Ashkelon, and killed thirty men in order to pay his debt.

Samson to be turned over as a prisoner, resulting in Samson smiting one thousand

prayer and Samson regained his strength.

act of destruction, the Israelites were freed from the Philistines.

involved in depicting Samson in their mosaic programs.

networks and assert their worldly pretentions.

JEWISH MOSAICS: A NEW APPROACH