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The oldest original synagogue building in the Diaspora: the Delos synagogue reconsidered
Hesperia, Fall, 2004 by Monika Trumper
5. The division of the large hall A/B into two rooms was not part of any formative restoration phase immediately following the events of 88 B.C., but occurred only later, either in the fourth or--as favored here--the fifth phase.
6. Because a lime kiln was installed in room A in a later period, it is not possible to determine which of the numerous marble objects found in this building were originally part of it or its equipment, and which were merely stored there to be burned in the kiln. Even finds and furniture that probably belonged to GD 80 can be assigned to and interpreted within the context of only the very last use of the building, before its abandonment at the end of the second century A.D. This applies to the characteristic furnishing of rooms A and B, which is dependent upon, and therefore secondary to, the renovated bisected hall. Consequently, in trying to identify the use of the original building, priority must be given to the architecture.
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7. The building was certainly never conceived and used as a domestic dwelling, nor, most likely, as a meeting place of a pagan association; its original form has nothing in common with the many private houses in Delos and only very little with the known meeting places. Function as a cultic pagan banquet hall seems similarly excluded as a possibility because clear indications of a pagan sacred precinct (e.g., altars, temples, shrines, cult images, or votives) are missing.
Several issues remain open and might be resolved only by further excavation:
1. The nature of the extension of the building to the east and the design of the entire eastern area (courtyard C) cannot be determined with any certainty. Although three porticoes (west, north, and south) can be reconstructed for phases 4 and/or 5, the matter of the design of the east facade, and with it the important question of accessibility and visibility, is problematic. It is equally uncertain whether the building was fronted by a single marble colonnade in any or all of the first three phases.
2. There is no evidence for the reconstruction of the fittings and, therefore, the precise use of the building in its first three phases. Permanent features such as built benches are missing. In theory, hall A/B already could have been furnished with the marble benches and throne, which were later adapted to the bisected hall, or flexibly with wooden furniture such as couches, tables, and seats.
3. The exact date of the initial construction of this building--for example, before or after 167/6 B.C.--cannot be determined. Not even the vague date of the "second century B.C." given in the literature need necessarily be correct, because the durations of the individual phases are unknown. In theory, a date in the third century B.C. or at the very beginning of the first century B.C. cannot be excluded.
4. Similarly, a date more precise than simply after 88 B.C. cannot be given for phases 3-5. It is uncertain whether, for example, the important fourth phase of embellishment and enlargement is dated somewhere around 50-40 B.C., when literary sources attest a certain influence and standing of Delian Jews, or whether, for example, the differentiation of space in the fifth phase occurred after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in A.D. 70, in accordance with possible changes in liturgy and the function of synagogues.
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