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chapter three
Figure III-4. Schematic illustrations of the zodiac panel: a. Hammath Tiberias; b. Sepphoris; c. Huseifa; d. Beth
"Alpha ;
e. Na#aran.
The representation at Hammath Tiberias
shows the central figure driving the solar chariot
(pl. III.5a; fig. III-5a): a young man with a
crown and a halo with rays emanating from it. He
looks up towards his raised right hand; in his left
hand he holds a globe and whip. A star and the
crescent moon are rendered in the upper background;
very little remains of the chariot, only tips
of hooves in the lower part have survived (Dothan
1983: 39-43). The Hammath Tiberias sun god
has all the attributes of Sol invictus (as suggested
by Dothan 1967: 132-134; 1983;41-43; see also
Levine 2003: 103-108); he appears in a similar
posture to the Helios depicted as Kosmokrator on
a 1st-century CE Pompeian fresco, and on a wall
mosaic of the 3rd-4th-century Tomb of the Julii
(pl. III.6a) beneath the Basilica of St. Peter in the
Vatican, Rome (Levi 1944: 302-4, Fig. 21; Stern
1953: pls. 29: 1, 6, 31: 6, 10, 11). A similar sun
god driving a quadriga (pl. III.12b) is depicted in
the astronomic text of Ptolemy (ms. 1291, a 9th
century copy of a 3rd-4th-century original).
At Sepphoris, however, the central circle zodiac
instead of the sun god riding the chariot, the sun
itself is shown with ten rays of light, suspended in
the centre; its central ray is attached to the chariot
(Weiss & Netzer 1996: 26; Weiss 2005: 104-110).
A chariot in frontal position is rendered with two
wheels harnessed to four galloping horses in profile,
two to the right and two to the left. Wavy
blue lines are shown on the lower part between
the horses’ legs (pl. III.5b; fig. III-5b). The horses
are presented in profile resting on their hind legs;
the heads of the two horses in the middle are
turned back to face the sun, while the heads of the
outer horses point outwards. The depiction and
posture of the Sepphoris horses is comparable to
the 3rd-century mosaic from Münster-Sarnheim
in Germany (pl. III.12a; Parlasca 1959: 86-7, 123,
pl. 84,2).