This photograph shows the central panel of the mosaic floor in the fourth century synagogue at Hammat Tiberias. The stones running through the middle of it are a later wall that was built in such a way as to destroy the mosaic. At the center of the…
This photograph shows the upper panel of the mosaic floor in the center of the fourth century synagogue at Hammat Tiberias. It is the last panel that a worshipper would see/walk across as he walked toward the standing Torah shrine on the southern…
This photograph shows a close-up of one of the panels of the mosaic floor in the 6th century CE synagogue at Beit Alpha. The panel tells the story of the Akedah, or the binding of Isaac (Genesis 22:1-19). At the left two servants stand with a beast…
This photograph shows a close-up of the figure at the center of the zodiac that is in the central panel of the mosaic floor in the fourth century synagogue at Hammat Tiberias. This very fine mosaic shows a depiction of the sun god Helios riding his…
This is a photograph of the synagogue of the ancient city of Tiberias. Several synagogues were built on this site over the centuries; much of the architecture that you see here dates to the 5th-8th centuries CE. The mosaic floor that you will see in…
This inscription, written in Greek, was found in the City of David, south of the Temple Mount, in 1914. It can be dated, on the basis of script, to the reign of King Herod (37-4 BCE), and its content points to a synagogue having been built in…