© Mark Thiessen, National GeographicArchaeologists have been uncovering mosaics at the Huqoq site since 2012. This is the latest to be revealed.
After several years of digging and study, archaeologists are revealing an extraordinary—and enigmatic—mosaic discovered among the ruins of a Roman-era synagogue at a site in Israel known as Huqoq.
Nothing like it has come to light in any other building yet known from the ancient world, experts say.Dated to the fifth century A.D., the mosaic depicts a meeting between two high-ranking male figures, one of whom appears to be a great general leading his troops. A major challenge to interpreting the scene is a total lack of identifying inscriptions.
"It's very frequent in late antique and early Byzantine art to have figures in mosaics and other media that are labeled," says Karen Britt, an art historian at Western Carolina University and the excavation's mosaic expert. "The fact that these are not labeled makes it confounding for the modern viewer."
The scene includes elephants outfitted for battle—a detail that immediately suggests the story of the
Maccabees, Judean leaders who mounted a revolt against the
Seleucid Empire in the mid-second century B.C. The Seleucids, who were descendants of one of Alexander the Great's generals, are famed for including elephants in their armies.
But excavation director
Jodi Magness, an archaeologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, has a different interpretation.
She believes the leader of the army is none other than Alexander the Great himself. His meeting with the high priest of Jerusalem never happened, but it was a piece of historical fiction that would have been very familiar to the residents of ancient Huqoq. (Learn more about the excavation at Huqoq
here and
here.)
"After Alexander's death in 323 B.C., when his fame spread and his importance became clear because of the way that he changed the face of the Near East, the Jews—like other ancient people—sought to associate themselves with him and his greatness," Magness explains. "That's why stories like this legend began to circulate."
Magness believes the mosaic should be read from bottom to top. In her view, the lowest tier, or register, depicts one of the many battles that Alexander the Great fought as he expanded his empire into the eastern Mediterranean.
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