DECORATIVE ART:
Grave Dig Uncovers 1,500-Year-Old Mosaic with Star of David and Cryptic Greek Petition in Türkiye (Leman Altuntaş, Arkeonews).
A routine burial in southeastern Türkiye has led to an extraordinary archaeological discovery. While digging a grave in the rural Özbilek neighborhood of Ergani district, local residents uncovered a stunning 35-square-meter mosaic floor believed to date back to the late Roman or early Byzantine period.
What makes the find even more fascinating is the presence of a six-line inscription in ancient Greek, resembling a formal petition or plea, along with a unique Star of David containing a Christian cross motif — a symbol rarely seen in combination. The mosaic was unearthed on March 8 during preparations for a burial, but the find has only recently been detailed by local museum authorities.
The article above has the best photo of the "Star of David" that I could find. As you can see, it is an eight-pointed star, two overlapping squares. It is not a Star of David. The Star of David is a six-pointed star, two overlapping equilateral triangles.
There is a + design in the center of the star. I don't know if it is a Christian cross. It's not obvious to me that it is. The mosaic has lots of geometric designs in it. You can see a better overall photo of it here. There is another + shape in the center of the big main design. The star containing the + is in the lower right.
It gets stranger. The Jerusalem Post reports: Mosaic with Star of David and Hidden Messages in Ancient Greek Found in Turkey. It too claims "The most striking feature of the mosaic is its incorporation of a Star of David with a cross motif and six lines of text written in Ancient Greek." There is a photo at the top which does depict a hexagram in a mosaic. There is a greenish blob in the center which has no resemblance to a cross. The article doesn't quite say that this is the mosaic being covered, but it certainly permits the reader to assume that.
I spent too much of my morning going down a rabbit hole to work out that the pictured mosaic is a fourth-century BCE one at Neo Paphos in Cyprus. It contains various geometric and other shapes, including, strikingly, a swastika next to the star. Both are just geometric designs in this period.
I was not surprised to see this notice at the bottom of the JP article: "Written with the help of a news-analysis system." In other words, it is AI generated.
In short, the mosaic discovered recently in Türkiye is of interest in itself, but it doesn't contain a Star of David. I suspect the "cross" is just a geometric decoration as well, but I don't know.
It is disappointing that the various journalists who transmitted this story didn't read it carefully enough to see the obvious problem with it. And doubly disappointing that the "Jerusalem Post Staff" let their article go through with that confusing and misleading photo. Why not use a photo of the actual Türkiye mosaic?
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