More on the Huqoq excavation

THE SUPERVISOR OF THE HUQOQ EXCAVATION is profiled and interviewed in the Southtown Star:

Frankfort native does much more than dig his job

BY SUSAN DEMAR LAFFERTY slafferty@southtownstar.com August 20, 2012 7:26PM

Updated: August 21, 2012 2:08AM

It isn’t King Tut’s tomb, the Rosetta Stone or even the Ark of the Covenant or the Holy Grail.

But what Frankfort native Matt Grey discovered on his summer vacation in Israel could provide significant insight into biblical and postbiblical life near the Sea of Galilee.

Grey, a 1994 Lincoln-Way Central High School graduate and now assistant professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University, supervised an archaeology team this June in Huqoq that uncovered a rare mosaic floor in an ancient Jewish synagogue — a work of art that no one had seen for 1,500 years.

The mosaic, made of high-quality stone cubes, depicts two female faces with a Hebrew or Aramaic inscription that refers to blessings on those who follow God’s commandments, Grey said.

It was unearthed by Bryan Bozung, a BYU graduate who was one of many student volunteers on the dig. He had been hoeing in search of the floor when he scraped upon something. He immediately called over Grey and project leader Dr. Jodi Magness, of the University of North Carolina. As they gently cleared the area, faces emerged through the dirt.

“We just stood there looking at these human faces. Then it dawned on us that this is a significant contribution to the study of ancient Judaism,” Grey said. “This type of discovery does not happen often.”
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As they continued to clear the site, another scene became evident — depicting Samson placing torches between the tails of foxes as noted in the biblical Book of Judges.

Only a few ancient synagogues were decorated with mosaic floors, even fewer had faces and fewer still featured biblical scenes. One of Samson is exceptionally rare.

“There’s only one other known image of Samson, and that’s two miles away (from this site),” Grey said. “Something about Samson resonated with them.”

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Read on for more about the excavator and the excavation. An interview with Bryan Bozung is noted here and that link also leads to lots of background links on the Samson mosaic.