What was found. At Migdal (Magdala/Taricheae, hometown of Mary Magdalene) on the lake's west shore, a 2009 Israel Antiquities Authority salvage excavation ahead of hotel construction (directed by Dina Avshalom-Gorni) struck, less than a meter down, a synagogue in use in the 1st century, with frescoed walls, mosaic floor, and stone benches, and in its main hall the "Magdala Stone": a carved stone block bearing one of the earliest known images of the Temple's seven-branched menorah, carved while the Second Temple still stood, flanked by Temple imagery (scholars read the stone as a Torah-reading table base or a symbolic representation of the Temple; its exact function is debated). In December 2021 the IAA announced a second 1st-century synagogue at Magdala (excavation directed by Dina Avshalom-Gorni and Yehuda Guvrin) about 100 m from the first, making Magdala the first Galilean town with two known synagogues from the period.
Why it matters. "Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues" (Matt 4:23; Mark 1:39 reads "preaching in their synagogues") long drew the objection that no 1st-century Galilean synagogue buildings were known. Magdala (with Gamla and others) answers it with masonry: village synagogue buildings existed in Jesus' Galilee, in a town a few miles from Capernaum, in his exact decades, and the menorah carving shows Galilean Jews carrying the Temple visually in mind.
Sources (read live 2026-06-12): Biblical Archaeology Society, "Archaeologists Discover New First-Century Synagogue in Magdala, Israel" + "The Magdala Stone: The Jerusalem Temple Embodied" (biblicalarchaeology.org); World History Encyclopedia, "The Archaeological Excavations at Magdala"; Wikipedia "Magdala stone" (CC BY-SA; sourced pointer).
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