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Related: About this forumElephant Mosaic In 5th Century Synagogue Uncovered
Posted: 08/09/2014 7:31 am EDT
Updated: 5 hours ago
The Huffington Post | By Antonia Blumberg
There are many amazing characters and creatures described in the Hebrew Bible, but elephants are not among them.
Imagine the surprise of a team of archaeologists who were in the midst of their fourth summer of excavations at an ancient synagogue in Israels Lower Galilee when they discovered elephants in a mosaic panel where they expected only to find biblical scenes.
There on the floor of a 5th century synagogue in the ancient Jewish village of Huqoq was an entire mosaic panel depicting non-biblical scenes, uncovered for the first time in 1,600 years. Until now, every other decoration archaeologists have discovered on an ancient synagogue has depicted scenes from the Hebrew Bible, as Director of the Huqoq excavations Jodi Magness from the the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) told HuffPost.
Three previous summers of excavations unearthed some fascinating but traditionally biblical discoveries, but during the 2014 dig season Magness and her team discovered an entire mosaic floor panel in the synagogue that depicted a three-part scene, which Magness said the creators likely intended as a story-telling decoration.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/09/galilee-elephant-mosaic_n_5658512.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
http://college.unc.edu/2014/07/02/mosaics2014/
http://huqoqexcavationproject.org/
meti57b
(3,584 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)Fascinating stuff.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Rec
rug
(82,333 posts)Those links opened up another world I was only dimly aware of. Post diaspora, pre Islam. What a time.
Response to rug (Original post)
rug This message was self-deleted by its author.
Half-Century Man
(5,279 posts)I'll have to go through my Bible and copy of Josephus to see if there is a written collaboration.
Part of the story of Chanukah involved the Seleucid empire's use of war elephants. A simple technique was devised to negate the awesome beasts. One person, a swordsman, got under the animal's center just behind the ribcage, and slashed along the body to gain access to the diaphragm; which in turn was slashed laterally. The elephant dropped straight down crushing the swordsman. A one to one exchange.
If this was in fact done, if this would even work, or if this is merely a legend; I do not know. But is possible that the puzzling mosaics might reference the Maccabees legend.
rug
(82,333 posts)This has a reference to war elephants and the Maccabees in the second century BCE.
http://www.jewishboston.com/Dan-Brosgol/blogs/2911-watch-out-for-rampaging-war-elephants-chanukah-is-here