Matching colors in Byzantine mosaics and Herodian frescoes at Hyrcania

ANCIENT, POLYCHROMATIC, MATERIAL-CULTURE SYNCHRONICITY: Mikvehs and monks: Vivid hues link rare Jewish and Christian finds in Judean Desert. Archaeologists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem just concluded their second season of excavations at Hyrcania, where they found colorful Byzantine mosaics and Herodian frescoes (ROSSELLA TERCATIN, Times of Israel).

When a community of Christian monks decided to erect their monastery on a hilltop in the Judean Desert in the 5th century CE, adorning it with mosaics and polychromatic decorations, they knew they weren’t the location’s first residents. What they were not aware of was that some 600 years earlier, their predecessors had chosen similar shades to decorate a different religious structure — a Jewish ritual bath — whose walls and ceilings were also painted in dazzling reds, greens, and yellows.

The remains from both the Byzantine and the Second Temple periods were uncovered during the second season of excavations at Hyrcania, about 17 kilometers southeast of Jerusalem, in today’s West Bank.

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Cross-file under Decorative Art.

I noted the discovery of that Greek paraphrased Psalm inscription in 2023.

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