Remains of fourth-century CE earthquake at Hippos

EXCAVATION: Archaeological findings shed light on massive 363 CE earthquake in Galilee. University of Haifa archaeologists find bones crushed under a collapsed roof, a dove-shaped gold pendant and catapult ammunition at site near Lake Kinneret (Jerusalem Post).

University of Haifa archeologists recently discovered items which have shed light on an earthquake that occurred in 363 CE in the ancient city of Hippos that overlooks Lake Kinneret.

Hippos, near modern-day Kibbutz Ein Gev overlooking the lake (the Sea of Galilee), was the site of a Greco-Roman city-state. It is just on the Israeli side of the 1949 armistice line with Syria. Susita Mountain, on which Hippos was built, is between the Kinneret Valley and the southwestern Golan mountain range, about 2 kilometers east of the lake and rising 350 meters above it. Hippos was part of the Decapolis, Ten Cities that were culturally tied more closely to Greece and Rome than to the otherwise Semitic region.

Archeologists digging at the excavation site, founded as Antioch of Hippos by Seleucid settlers and known as Susita in Hebrew, uncovered a woman’s skeleton and a gold dove-shaped pendant under the tiles of a collapsed roof. In addition, they found the marble leg of a statue and artillery from some 2,000 years ago.

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Cool pendant. For lots more ancient bling, see here and here and links. And for past posts on Hippos-Sussita, see here and links.