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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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FUNCTION OF THE WATER RESERVOIR

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What requirements had to be met by a Jewish ritual bath, and how can a potential installation for ritual bathing be recognized? The Jewish laws provide an elaborate system of regulations regarding ritual purity. The required state of purity could be obtained by immersion in a natural body of water--a spring, river, lake, or the sea--or in a pool specially designed for this purpose. Only the latter, which had to be carved into the bedrock or built directly into the ground, was called a miqveh; it had to be filled with at least 40 se'ah (250-1000 liters, according to various calculations) of undrawn water, which was either collected rain water or spring water delivered by an aqueduct. Steps occupying the entire width of the miqveh, or narrow staircases on one or two sides of the basin, led down into the pool. (129) To date, the earliest known miqva'ot are located in the palaces of the Hasmoneans in Jericho, on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and in synagogues in Jericho and at Gamala, Masada, and Herodion. Reich, the authority on miqva'ot, has stated that, "frequently used in the Second Temple period in Judea (Judah) and Galilee, miqva'ot were absent from the Late Hellenistic and Early Roman world." (130) Therefore, if the water reservoir in question was a miqveh of some kind, it would be one of the earliest examples in the world, the earliest associated with a synagogue building, and the only one outside Palestine.

How, then, was the water reservoir of GD 80 constructed, and how is it to be judged within its local context? In Delian architecture, wells, cisterns, and large water reservoirs were usually located in a courtyard. Small ordinary wells were carved into the natural rock, built up to the sufficient height with gneiss or granite blocks, and had a small opening that was framed by a stone border or curb (puteal). Larger reservoirs and cisterns were also cut into the rock and built up, but had to be roofed with the aid of arches or beams. Whereas the arches were made of poros or granite, the beams were wood or stone. The walls of cisterns and larger reservoirs were covered with waterproof stucco, which was not deemed necessary for the narrow wells. It is self-evident that, for reasons of stability, the placement of walls or stylobates and colonnades on top of the arches or beams was avoided. (131)

Within this context, the water reservoir of GD 80 has both normal and abnormal characteristics. (1) A natural gap in the rock with a total length of 6.08 m was partly built up and roofed with a poros vault that extended 4.00 m beneath the floor of room B. According to Bruneau, the remaining 2.08 m, visible in room D1 (Fig. 43), was open to the sky and freely accessible, and the marble arch in the south wall of B would have been constructed intentionally for this purpose (Fig. 44). However, this arch was necessary because of the enormous size of the large hall A/B and the weight of its roof, which rested on the walls, among them the south wall of B; thus, it served simply as a relieving arch. Furthermore, it certainly would have been walled up and covered with stucco in room B and, most probably, also in D1, and thus would not have been visible at all. (132) (2) The large opening in D1 is framed by the natural rock, which forms a completely irregular border. This border would have been highly inconvenient for any use of the reservoir, either the drawing of water or bathing, which suggests that the opening was originally stabilized and framed by walls and probably even covered with beams of stone, or, more preferably, wood. Like the floor on top of the vault in room B, this construction could have collapsed or, if it was wooden, even burned. (133) (3) Finally, there are no steps leading down into the reservoir, the walls of which are very steep and high. Bruneau imagines a wooden ladder or stairs, which would have been quite a simple and makeshift arrangement, especially when compared with the elaborate and costly construction of the poros vault and the marble relieving arch. If human access to the water reservoir was intended from the beginning, or in one of the subsequent phases, it would not have caused too many problems either to cut steps into the rock or to build a simple staircase of stone. (134) On the whole, the regular and frequent use of the water reservoir for bathing or immersion is to be seriously doubted.

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

Hesperia, Fall, 2004 by Monika Trumper

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