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The oldest original synagogue building in the Diaspora: the Delos synagogue reconsidered

Hesperia, Fall, 2004 by Monika Trumper

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[FIGURE 35 OMITTED]

The urban layout being unknown, it is, moreover, difficult to determine whether the large hall was deliberately erected over the natural gap in the rock that was transformed into a water reservoir. Is this arrangement --clearly unfavorable within the Delian context--attributable only to the predefined position of the plot of land?

SECOND PHASE: EXTENSION TO THE SOUTH

Two wall systems were added to the first gneiss building, the mixed granite and gneiss walls and the marble spoil wall (Fig. 3). One of them may belong to the second phase of reconstruction. The mixed granite and gneiss wall system is identified here with the second phase because it is the most similar in technique, material, and quality to the gneiss wall complex (Fig. 36).

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[FIGURE 36 OMITTED]

This phase probably comprised an extension of the building to the south and the installation of several rooms, some of which seem to have been subdivided subsequently, thus providing more rooms that could be used separately. As none of the features of these rooms (pavements, stucco coating, drains, installations) or finds are preserved, it is impossible to judge their purpose and character--service rooms, storerooms, or simple living quarters? Because of their sizes, forms, and positions, especially in comparison with the large hall A/B, the possibility that they functioned as luxurious assembly or banquet rooms can be largely ruled out.

The reconstruction of the area to the east remains problematic, as discussed with regard to the first phase (Fig. 34). In theory, a colonnade could have been added at this point. If such a colonnade existed from the first phase onward, it would have to have been extended farther south during the second phase, in correspondence with the conjectured extension of the south room complex.

THIRD PHASE: RENOVATION OF THE HALL

In the sequence proposed here, remodeling the east wall of hall A/B by integrating reused marble material is assigned to the third phase of the building's history (Fig. 37). In theory this modification could be assigned to the second phase, but the remarkable differences between the respective wall systems do not support such a possibility. Whereas the renovation of the east wall undoubtedly took place after the installation of the gneiss wall system (the first phase), establishing the sequence in which the marble spoil wall and the granite wall system appeared has proven to be particularly difficult, as described above. Both features are of paramount importance to our understanding of the construction history, the spoil wall because of a terminus post quem of 88 B.C. for its realization, the granite system because it--finally--clearly defines the problematic eastern part of the complex. Since the alternative favored here is that the renovation of the east wall of A/B involved the entirety of the wall, from the northeast corner to the southeast, the granite wall system is assigned to a later phase. (109)

[FIGURE 37 OMITTED]

The oldest original synagogue building in the Diaspora: the Delos synagogue reconsidered

Hesperia, Fall, 2004 by Monika Trumper

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