Huqoq

8 mi) north of Tiberias, now in the Lower Galilee region of Israel. It has been settled since ancient times and is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible in Joshua 19. The Palestinian village of Yaquq stood on the site until it was depopulated in May 1 during the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight. Solel Boneh, the construction arm of the Histadrut, had built a Tegart fort at Hukok near the site on 11 July 1945, and later a kibbutz was established there.

Archaeological excavations revealed that a prosperous Jewish community inhabited Huqoq during the Roman and Byzantine periods. A spring supported the ancient settlement, whose monumental synagogue contains some of the most elaborate mosaics from late antiquity ever found in the region. These include detailed depictions of biblical scenes and rare non-biblical imagery that challenge previous assumptions about ancient Jewish art. Fieldwork has also uncovered extensive Bar Kokhba hiding complexes carved by the local population during the Jewish–Roman wars, including what is described as the most extensive such system discovered to date in the Galilee.

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