Talk:Zodiac mosaics in ancient synagogues

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Ancient Near East

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Photos removed

Lots of grave issues.

Different calendar, different zodiac from Gezer
Beit She'an
Maon Synagogue with large lion, menorah, caged bird, palm trees
This Usha mosaic may have been bleached by time

Gezer: 1) OR (original research). 2) Hard to see any connection. 3) Read up: at least one - possibly inspired by zodiac iconography, but not a zodiac wheel per se. 4) Photo probably a copyright infringement: encyclopedia pages with recent layout, even if photos are old. Should probably be removed from Commons.

Beit Shean: 1) OR. What's the connection? 2) Did the Israel Museum allow publication?

Maon: What's the connection? Thre are plenty of nice synagogue mosaics w/o zodiacs, why this one? AND a poor photo, too.

Usha: 1) OR. What's the connection? 2) This isn't even from the Usha synagogue. 3) "mosaic may have been bleached by time": no such thing. White tesserae. Serious case of imagination in the wrongest possible place. Arminden (talk) 22:26, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also removed baffling, unexplained "caption":

"Many Beth Alpha attendees wouldn't have been able to read this Hebrew."

Why? It's Wiki, not a riddle contest. Arminden (talk) 22:48, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Does this dating seem right to you?

The way the dating is presented in the article gives me a funny feeling. I'm not planning on rereading the sources right now, but my memory of them isn't oddly insistent that the phenomenon started in the 4th century at the earliest, like the article is.

There's a recent work on synagogues that probably won't help, it just quickly repeats the stuff referenced here. If there's any new publications on these please let us know. Temerarius (talk) 22:51, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

By just going through the list of sources, w/o checking the edits, the sources all look rock-solid and recent (after 2000, many since 2017), except for Hachlili (1977), but she's the leading specialist. Arminden (talk) 05:57, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]