Works in Progress - Autumn 2018

The Grape Escape

Oenophilic discoveries near the Sea of Galilee

By Noelani Kirschner | September 4, 2018
Jim Haberman
Jim Haberman

For the past seven summers, archaeologist Jodi Magness of the University of North Carolina has directed excavations at Huqoq, an ancient village near the Sea of Galilee. Her team has uncovered several striking mosaics from the floor of a fifth-century A.D. synagogue, including the one shown here from this summer’s dig. It depicts a scene from the Book of Numbers in which two Israelite spies, dispatched to Canaan by Moses, return from their expedition carrying grapes hanging from a pole. The inscription on the mosaic reads: “a pole between two.”

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