Sepphoris

Sepphoris​

Israel

Sepphoris ( Hebrew צִפּוֹרִי Zippori / Tzippori ; ancient Greek Σέπφωρις ; in Roman times, Latin Diocaesarea ; Arabic صفورية, DMG Ṣaffūrīya ; at the time of the French Crusaders Saforie ) was an ancient city in Galilee . It was in the 1st century BC. A larger city in the region and was located about eight kilometers north of Nazareth . Ancient Sepphoris is located above the Moshav Zippori, founded in 1949, in the Israeli northern district .

history

The Jewish historian Flavius ​​Josephus reports in his History of the Jewish War that Pharaoh Ptolemy Lathrys besieged the city unsuccessfully on a Sabbath . According to this, it was around 106 BC. Fortified with outer walls. It was defended against the Romans by supporters of the Jewish king Alexander Jannäus - a descendant of the Maccabees . From 63 BC In BC Sepphoris and all of Galilee were firmly in Roman hands. Around 55 BC The proconsul of Syria , Aulus Gabinius , called the only official Roman council for Galilee there. It is therefore assumed that the city has now become the Roman administrative seat.

In the war between Herod the Great and his rival Matthias Antigonus for power over Galilee, Sepphoris got between the fronts. Herod conquered the city and held it until his death in 4 BC. BC Judas the son of Ezechias (Judah ben Hezekiah) used the situation to lead the townspeople to an uprising against the Herodians, who were patronized by the Romans. Then let Publius Varus Quinctilius , then governor of Syria, completely destroy the city.

Herod Antipas , a son of Herod the Great, then had it rebuilt and made it the center of his tetrarchy under the name Autocratoris . Until he moved to the newly built city of Tiberias in 19 AD , Sepphoris was his capital and the particularly beautifully designed figurehead of his rule. Josephus therefore called it the "ornament of all Galilee" and also suggests that it was "the strongest city of Galilee", that is, a Roman military center.

Remnants of a tower from the crusader era, 2009

During his time as general of the Galilean Jews in the war against the Romans and in the civil war with John of Gischala , Josephus conquered the city twice. He reports that their residents were filled with fear of their compatriots because they were friends with the Romans and had made an agreement with Cestius Gallus , the Syrian governor.

Under Antoninus Pius (138-161) the city was renamed Diocaesarea . A bishop also resided here in Byzantine times. Bishop Marcellinus appears among the signatories of the resolutions of the Synod of Jerusalem (518). The titular diocese of Diocaesarea in Palestine of the Roman Catholic Church also goes back to the ancient diocese .

In the 12th century, the Crusaders built the Gothic Church of St. Anne and a castle in Sepphoris, which they called Le Saforie , and incorporated it into their Kingdom of Jerusalem .

The following important information is missing from this section:

History of the place between the 12th century and 1950.
Complete ethnic cleansing and physical destruction of the Palestinian village of Ṣaffūrīya in 1948 and establishment of the modern Israeli village of Zippori in its place.

Help Wikipedia by researching and pasting it .

Zippori National Park, archeology

Excavations since 1950 confirm these ancient notes: Sepphoris lay on a hill and was visible from afar. Their streets were lined with precious broken marble . A Roman theater was built into a hill. A citizen basilica with white mosaic floors and rich wall paintings dates from the 1st century AD . Ordinary and elegant houses were found side by side in the inner city area. There were two markets where there was a brisk trade in regional goods - presumably mainly food ( wheat , olives , grapes, dried fish ), ceramics, jewelry and textiles.

In 1993, during preparatory work for the opening of the national park, the remains of a synagogue were found by chance, which coin finds dated to the beginning of the fifth century AD. In particular, the well-preserved mosaics, which, among other things, depict the god Helios , form one of Sepphoris' special features:

Zodiac mosaic from the synagogue of Sepphoris

The synagogue's mosaic is divided into 7 panels, which have been preserved to varying degrees, but all in all show severe damage. Panels 1, 2 and 4 are divided into three vertically, No. 6 is vertically divided in half, 3.5 and 7 are not divided. The picture program of the mosaic is a mixture of biblical-Jewish and extra-biblical motifs. In panels 7 and 6 (near the entrance) there are depictions of biblical stories. Panels 4, 3 and 2 contain Jewish symbols, panel 1 has a wreath in the middle from which the streams of life (?) Flow. Panel 5 contains a representation of the zodiac . In the (practically undamaged) center you can see the four horses of the sun chariot of the god Helios. The god himself is not depicted figuratively-anthropomorphically, but as the sun with rays. This is an important difference to other representations of the zodiac (such as Chammat Tiberias ), where the sun god is depicted as a human figure. Only four of the figurative zodiac signs around it have largely been preserved. Outside the zodiac, in the corners of the square in which the zodiac is embedded, there are figurative representations of the four seasons.

Particularly impressive is the city's water supply, which was first studied in 1931 by a group from the University of Michigan . In 1993 and 1994 a group from the Archaeological Institute of Tel Aviv University investigated the water supply system of the ancient city of Sepphoris. In 1995, parts of the water supply were made accessible to visitors and form one of the attractions of the Sepphoris National Park .

Social structure

The social structure was largely determined by property and ancestry. Large landowners, traders and customs collectors were the "rich" who dominated city life at the time. They owned land in the surrounding area and also delivered their products to neighboring towns. They also worked largely for Herod's government. The middle class included clerks, judges, craftsmen, small farmers, money changers, and tax collectors. Some researchers suspect that Joseph and Jesus of Nazareth as builders also helped build Sepphoris and earned their living there. The poor included landless people, slaves , cattle herders, day laborers, beggars, prostitutes , thieves, and bandits.

Ancient sources

• on the Council of Gabinius: Antiquitates 14.89
• Reconstruction under Herod Antipas: Antiquitates 18.26

See also

• Caesarea Philippi

literature

Excavation reports

• Eric M. Meyers, Carol L. Meyers (Eds.): The Pottery from Ancient Sepphoris. Sepphoris Excavation Reports I. Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake / IN 2013. ISBN 978-1-57506-269-3
• Eric C. Lapp: The Clay Lamps from Ancient Sepphoris: Light Use and Regional Interactions. Sepphoris Excavation Reports II. Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake / IN 2016. ISBN 978-1-57506-404-8
• Eric M. Meyers, Carol L. Meyers, Benjamin D. Gordon: The Architecture, Stratigraphy, and Artifacts of the Western Summit of Sepphoris. Sepphoris Excavations Reports III. Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake / IN 2018.
• James F. Strange, Thomas RW Longstaff, Dennis E. Groh: Excavations at Sepphoris I. University of South Florida Probes in the Citadel and Villa (= The Brill Reference Library of Judaism 22). Brill, Leiden / Boston 2006. ISBN 978-90-04-12626-8

Others

• Stuart S. Miller: Studies in the history and traditions of Sepphoris. Brill, Leiden 1984. ISBN 90-04-06926-7 .
• Günter Stemberger : The meaning of the zodiac on the mosaic floors of late antique synagogues . In: ders. (Ed.): Studies on rabbinic Judaism. Stuttgart 1990, pp. 177-228.
• Eric M. Meyers, Ehud Netzer , Carol L. Meyers: Sepphoris. Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake Ind 1992. ISBN 0-9602686-9-3 .
• Ze'ev Weiss, Ehud Netzer: Promise and Redemption: a Synagogue Mosaic from Sepphoris. Israel Museum, Jerusalem 1996. ISBN 965-278-184-3 .
• Rebecca Martin Nagy (Ed.): Sepphoris in Galilee: crosscurrents of culture. Exhibition North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh NC, November 17, 1996 - July 6, 1997; Kelsey Museum of Archeology and the University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor Mich., September 7, 1997 - December 14, 1997. Raleigh NC 1996. ISBN 0-88259-971-2 .
• Rina Talgam, Ze'ev Weiss: The mosaics of the house of Dionysos at Sepphoris - excavated by EM Meyers, E. Netzer and CL Meyers (= Qedem Monographs 44). Institute of Archeology, Jerusalem 2004.
• Zeev Weiss: The Sepphoris Synagogue: Deciphering an Ancient Message through its Archaeological and socio-Historical Contexts. Jerusalem 2005. ISBN 965-221-057-9 .

Web links

Commons : Tzippori  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Page on excavations in Sepphoris of the Archaeological Institute of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Article Diocaesarea . In: Catholic Encyclopedia , Robert Appleton Company, New York 1913.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Josephus: Jewish Antiquities 18:27
2. ↑ See Michael Avi-Yonah : A Sixth-Century Inscription from Sepphoris. In: Israel Exploration Journal 11 (1961), 184-187, pl. 36.
3. ↑ See Denys Pringle: Secular Buildings in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. To Archaeological Gazetteer. Cambridge University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-521-46010-7 .

Coordinates: 32 ° 45 ′ 8 ″  N , 35 ° 16 ′ 52 ″  E