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Learn more about Huqoq and its dazzling mosaics with our terrific case study!
Teachers, scroll down for a quick list of key resources in our Teachers’ Toolkit.
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How are the mosaic figures similar?
How are they different?
Image courtesy Naples National Archaeological Museum and Wikimedia
Discussion Ideas
Unique mosaics have been discovered at Huqoq, a site that archaeologist Jodi Magness describes as “a Galilean village that was occupied for a long time because there is a spring next to it that attracted settlement. The name ‘Huqoq’ is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible—in the Old Testament—so it was occupied for a very long time, not necessarily continuously.” Take a look at two of the Huqoq mosaics below.
Photograph courtesy Jim Haberman
Photograph courtesy Jim Haberman
- What are mosaics?
- A mosaic is a picture or design made from assembling many, many tiny pieces of colored glass.
- Here is one blogger’s list of the “10 Must-Visit Cities with Mosaic Art”—from a curious Alice in Wonderland (actually, the New York City subway); to the turquoise geometry of the Jame Mosque in Yazd, Iran; to the wave-like walkway of Copacabana Beach, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; to Antonio Gaudi’s Casa Batllo in Barcelona, Spain.
- A mosaic is a picture or design made from assembling many, many tiny pieces of colored glass.
- Why are the mosaics at Huqoq so unusual?
- The site at Huqoq is a 5th century synagogue, or Jewish place of worship. According to Dr. Magness, “Synagogues of this particular type . . . typically don’t have mosaic floors. They have flagstone pavements.” (The lighter-colored stones in this image are ancient flagstones used at Capernaum, an ancient synagogue near Huqoq.)
- Why do some historians and archaeologists think the blond, bearded, be-cloaked gentleman depicted in the Huqoq mosaics may be Alexander the Great?
- The meeting of Alexander the Great and the Jewish priests of Jerusalem is an old story that would have been very familiar to 5th-century Jews in Huqoq. (Josephus! You kind of can’t escape him in this part of the world.)
- The mosaic shows a procession of soldiers and elephants following a warrior in battle dress and a purple cape. “Battle elephants were associated with Greek armies beginning with Alexander the Great,” explains Dr. Magness, “so this might be a depiction of a Jewish legend about the meeting between Alexander and the Jewish high priest.”
TEACHERS’ TOOLKIT
Nat Geo: Surprising Mosaics Revealed in Ancient Synagogue in Israel
Nat Geo: Huqoq Excavation Project (Case Study: Archaeology and Technology)
Livius: Alexander Visits Jerusalem
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An interesting mosaic.
This does not depict Alexander the Great. Instead, this is a scene from the Talmud, where bar Kamza offers a sacrificial calf on behalf of the Romans, to rabbi Zechariah Abkulas (see Gittin 55-57). This was in about AD 68. But bar Kamza was being devious here, because he had cut the calf’s lip (you can see the mark), knowing that Zechariah would have to reject the blemished offering, and so offend the Romans, and thereby precipitate the Jewish Revolt. This was one way in which the Jewish Revolt was deliberately forged.
So was bar Kamza? Well, Kamza is a witty hypocorism, meaning ‘locust’. And there was a royal family in Syria who were disparaged as being locusts, one of whom was Agabus (meaning locust) who appears in Acts of the Apostles (Acts 11:27). This Syrian Agabus prophesied the great Judaean famine of AD 47, and this confirms that the royal family of ‘locusts’ was the Syrian monarchy of King Abgarus V of Edessa, who was married to Queen Helena. (Note – Agabus and Agbarus, the Roman and Syriac pronunciations respectively.) And it was Queen Helena of Syria, the wife of Abgarus, who saved Judaea from the AD 47 famine. And all the Edessan royalty wore the diadema headband, the symbol of of both Greek and Greeco-Persian royalty, the same as in this mosaic.
But we are looking for the son of King Abgarus here (bar Kamza, not Kamza), and he was called King Izas Manu VI of Edessa. And we know that bar Kamza was King Izas Manu, because both are said to have started the Jewish Revolt (Gittin 55-57, and Josephus Flavius). But who was King Izas Manu? believe it or not he was the biblcial King Jesus Em Manu-el. (They share many, many similarities.)
This is why the character in this mosaic is dressed in military uniform and is wearing a purple cloak – which was the sole prerogative of the Roman Emperor. So we know this character on the mosaic was claiming the throne of Rome. However, the biblical Jesus (King Izas Manu) was also pointedly said to have been dressed in a purple cloak (Mark 15:7). Why? Because the Jewish Revolt was primarily a revolt against Rome, rather than Judaea, and King Izas Manu (the biblical Jesus) wanted to become the next emperor of Rome.
So this mosaic depicts bar Kamza giving a sacrificial calf to the priests of Jerusalem. And bar Kamza is King Izas Manu of Edessa. And King Izas Manu is the biblical King Jesus Manu-el, who has at last been discovered in the historical record. Please see: ‘Jesus, King of Edessa’.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/news/2016/09/09/israel_mosaic_mark/02_israel_mosaic_mark.ngsversion.1473520267943.jpg
Ralph
Merci à vous pour ces merveilles !