Meroth seemed to be breaking all the rules. Galilean-type synagogues in Upper Galilee were supposed to have paved flagstone floors. Mosaic floors were supposed to have been introduced later. Yet here was a mosaic floor (the second floor of the synagogue) which was later covered over with a paved flagstone floor (the third floor of the synagogue). In short, about 25 years after the original plaster floor had been replaced with a mosaic floor, the mosaic floor was itself replaced with a stone-paved floor. We can date this third floor quite accurately to about 475 A.D. That is the latest date of hundreds of coins we found underneath and between the flagstones, intentionally placed there to bring the building and its congregants blessings and good fortune—a widespread custom of tossing coins that has survived in various ways to our own day.

Excerpted from Zvi Ilan and Emmanuel Damati, “The Synagogue at Meroth- Does It Fix Israel’s Northern Border in Second Temple Times?” BAR 15-02, Mar-Apr 1989.