256 CHAPTER NINEthe square .This identification of the zodiacal signs with the months is, in fact,
rather odd .Assuming that the Sepphorites in the fifth century used for liturgical
purposes something like the periodically intercalated lunar calendar common
in the Near East (and still in use as the Jewish liturgical calendar), the months
actually fail to correspond precisely to the zodiacal signs, in some years in quite
a significant way.^40 The introduction of the month names into the design may
thus be another hint of anxiety, an attempt to tame a symbol that some people
found problematic because of its obvious associations with astrology.
In all the synagogues but Sepphoris, the next panel after the zodiac contains
the ark flanked bymenorotand associated symbols .This panel in fact mirrored
the real scene that stood before it, since it seems likely that synagogue arks
were normally flanked by menorot (notwithstanding the strictures of the rab-
bis), remains of which have been found in several places.^41 But it was a dis-
torting-mirror effect, for the mosaic panels always add elements that seem
intended to heighten the evocation of the temple cult already present in the
use of actual seven-branched menorot in the synagogue .Represented on the
pavements, floating alongside the menorot, arelulavim,shofarot, and incense
shovels.^42 Though the rabbis authorized the use of lulavim and shofarot out-
side the temple (i.e., in synagogues), in the Pentateuch their association with
the cult is unmistakable and there is no way of knowing if they were actually
used in nonrabbinic synagogues .The incense shovel is certainly strongly asso-
ciated with the cult .Though incense apparently was burned in some syna-
gogues, the two extant censers I am aware of are not shovels.^43 In Bet Alfa, the
(^40) Yet Jewish astrological texts, which seem on the whole somewhat later than the mosaics,
persistently identify the signs and the lunar months, though the months play no role at all in
their horoscopic calculations; see, e.g., Sefer Yezirah 5:2; Beraita deMazalot, chapter 1 (see S. A.
Wertheimer and A .J .Wertheimer,Batei Midrashot(Jerusalem: Ktab Wasepher, 1968), 2: 12; the
text, indebted to both rabbinic and Ptolemaic cosmology, has been attributed to Shabbatai Don-
nolo, a southern Italian physician and magician of the tenth century: see G .Sarfatti, “An Intro-
duction to Berayta De-Mazzalot,”Bar-Ilan3 (1965): 56–82); Pesiqta Rabbati, ed .M .Ish-Shalom
[Friedmann], (reprint Vienna: Kaiser, 1880 Tel Aviv, 1963), 95–96 (on the vexed question of the
dating of this text—conceivably any time between c .400 and the high Middle Ages, see H .Strack
and G .Stemberger,Introduction to the Talmud and the Midrash[Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992],
pp .325–29).
(^41) See Hachlili in Fine,Sacred Realm, p .111.
(^42) This mirroring effect is already present in the synagogue of Dura, where over the aedicula
is a painting of the Temple ark, with images of the menorah, lulav, and etrog to the left, and, to
the right, an aqedah scene .See C .Kraeling,The Synagogue(= A .R .Bellinger et al .,The Excava-
tions at Dura Europus, Final ReportVIII, pt .1) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1956), pp.
54–62; Goodenough,Jewish Symbols9 (1964): 68.
(^43) For the incense burner from Sepphoris, see above; it is not necessarily “Jewish”; the other
is from late antique Egypt and is marked with a menorah; see Fine,Sacred Realm, p .87, fig.
4.18, catalogue no. 2, an entry that is a masterpiece of equivocation—explicable by the fact that
for the rabbis, burning of incense was the halakhic equivalent of animal sacrifice.