INV. 038 · Mosaic
Zodiac mosaic of the Beth Alpha synagogue
General view of the mosaic floor, with the zodiac wheel in the central panel. For the authors, zodiacs like this may have marked the passage of the year, as in non-Jewish communities, and eventually became a conventional Jewish decoration: an example of how synagogues adopted Greco-Roman imagery without seeing it as a violation of the biblical ban.
- Type
- Mosaic
- Nature
- Ancient objectThe object itself dates from the period indicated.
- Date of the object
- sixth century CECaption of figure 5.1 in Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman (p. 123), which dates the synagogue to the sixth century.
- Depicts
- A Greco-Roman zodiac with the sun god Helios at the center and the 12 signs labeled with Hebrew names.
- Provenance
- Beth Alpha synagogue, near Beth Shean (Israel).
- Image
- Betty Nudler from Jerusalem, IsraelBeit Alfa Synagogue Zodiac Mosaic
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0 ↗
- Retrieved
- Commons API, 2026-10-14
Sourced historical context
At Beth Alpha, near Beth Shean, the mosaic floor of a sixth-century synagogue carries a Greco-Roman zodiac: Helios, the sun god, sits at the center, ringed by the 12 classical signs, each with a Hebrew name. Such zodiacs may have served, as among non-Jews, to follow the cycle of the year; in time the zodiac became a Jewish decorative motif in its own right. The architecture and decoration of synagogues imitated non-Jewish public buildings. Some had mosaic floors with the Greco-Roman zodiac, the personified seasons and the sun god Helios: those who frequented them evidently did not see this as a violation of the biblical ban on divine images.