Late-antique synagogue excavated in the Golan

ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE: Archaeologists unearth 1,500-year-old synagogue below abandoned Syrian village in Golan. A team from the University of Haifa and Kinneret College identifies an ancient wall facing Jerusalem and 150 synagogue items, including a stone engraved with a menorah (Rossella Tercatin, Times of Israel).

For decades, Israeli researchers had surveyed the village, which contains several stones and architectural elements from the synagogue incorporated into its houses. However, the synagogue’s exact location remained a mystery.

“The abandoned Syrian village is built on top of ancient remains,” said Dr. Mechael Osband from the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa and the Department of Land of Israel Studies at the Kinneret Academic College. “You’d walk into a house and see a pillar in the middle used as a support for the roof, or a Doric capital underneath an archway.”

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