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Samson and the Gate of Gaza

By MALIN GRUNBERG BANYASZ

September/October 2013

Samson-mosaic-Please-photo-credit-Jim-Haberman

 

At the site of Huqoq, in Israel’s Galilee region, Jodi Magness of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has discovered a mosaic depicting Samson. The fifth-century work shows him carrying the gate of Gaza on his shoulders—a scene from Judges 16:3. Another Samson mosaic was found there last year, suggesting the synagogue had been decorated with a pictorial cycle, the first of its kind uncovered in Israel.