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The oldest original synagogue building in the Diaspora: the Delos synagogue reconsidered
Hesperia, Fall, 2004 by Monika Trumper
3. The number and sizes of the slabs of the west stylobate can be fairly well determined on the basis of cuttings in the marble step below (which is completely preserved) for vertical dowels, and according to pry cuttings in the gneiss foundation west of this step that were used to position the stylobate blocks. According to these cuttings, the stylobate comprised 10 or 11 slabs that were joined to the step with dowels (Fig. 30). (78)
[FIGURE 30 OMITTED]
The number of columns to be restored depends on the bottom diameter and axial span, and in many cases, evidence on the stylobate gives clear indications of these dimensions. However, the single preserved block of the stylobate (L. 2.40 m, W. 0.725 m; block 4 in Fig. 30) exhibits no clear marks for the setting of a column, except for two rectangular sockets with pour-channels that could have served to anchor a column with a bottom
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diameter of at least 0.45 m and at most 0.725 m, but probably about 0.60 m (Fig. 31). (79) If no column was fixed on that block, the shortest possible axial span would have exceeded about 3.10 m. (80) A comparison of the colonnades of private and public buildings in Delos demonstrates that such a span was very rarely achieved. Table 1 presents the dimensions of some four-winged peristyles and porticoes.
[FIGURE 31 OMITTED]
According to this comparative table, it seems necessary to restore a column on the stylobate block mentioned above, which was neither worked with much care nor very expensive. (81) Since the axial distance between a column positioned on this slab according to the evidence of the pour-channels and the conjectured position of a column on the southernmost block of the stylobate measures about 4.55 m, another column must be inserted between them, which creates an interaxial distance of 2.275 m. To the north, the axial space between the same restored column and the conjectured northernmost column measures about 13.20 m, which could be divided into six intercolumniations of 2.20 m. This would accommodate a total of nine columns, all set up somewhere near, or at, the midlength of the slabs of the stylobate (Fig. 32). Even if the stylobate was not extended 0.25-0.30 m to the north, as hereby proposed, a reduction of the number of columns to eight, with an axial spacing of approximately 2.60 m between the five northern columns, is highly unlikely because, in that case, four columns would have rested directly on the joints between the stylobate blocks, which was usually avoided. (82)
[FIGURE 32 OMITTED]
If the north stylobate continued to the supposed east limit of courtyard C, it would have measured about 9.70 m from the northwest corner to the east end; if it abutted an east wall it would have been about 0.60 m shorter. The longer stylobate would have offered space for five columns with an axial spacing of about 2.25 m and the shorter one for four columns with similar placement, as the east wall would have taken the place of the fifth column. (83)
Today several column drums and capitals are to be found in GD 80. The five fluted drums in room A and the Corinthian capital in courtyard C (Figs. 10, 22) were most probably stored here to feed the later lime kiln in room A; they could not have been set up on the stylobate because the lower diameter of the only preserved bottom drum is about 0.90 m, which exceeds by far the width of the preserved stylobate block (0.725 m). In addition, one plain column drum of white marble is today situated near the stylobate in the west portico. Its dimensions, with a lower diameter of 0.58-0.60 m, would allow it to be set up on the stylobate. (84) A plain Doric capital of white marble is just north of this drum, suggesting that the two belonged to the same column (Fig. 25). A more elaborate Doric capital of white marble, with flutes on the necking, is stored west of the building, to the west of the marble throne in room A (Fig. 22). (85)
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