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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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Bruneau (1970, p. 483) suggests a single colonnade running north-south, but gives no reconstruction. According to him, the interruption of this colonnade ca. 5 m short of the north and south walls of the courtyard might be explained by reconstructing closing walls that framed the colonnade. Traces of such a wall (classified as a "late" wall on Fig. 3) are preserved in a foundation south of the stylobate, but this foundation is considerably to the east (0.40 m) and differs in orientation from that of the stylobate. Therefore, the architrave could not have extended to and rested properly upon such a wall (the stoas GD 3, 98, and 100 are flanked by long or short walls that were aligned with the columns). The same problems arise with the modest traces of a corresponding foundation north of the stylobate. Furthermore, if the colonnade was indeed flanked by walls, it would be incomprehensible that the north and south walls of the courtyard continued east. Bruneau argues that all walls abutting the stylobate (foundations a-d) were added subsequently, but does not suppose a similar process for the corresponding north and south facades of the courtyard.

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(70.) As proposed by Binder (1999, pp. 297-317) and Mazur (1935). Reliable evidence for their reconstruction of a square courtyard with dimensions of 28 x 28 m and eight columns on a side would be furnished by Plassart's original plan, which has never been published but which Mazur obtained from Plassart. On Bruneau's plan the walls of the courtyard measure only 15 m (north) and 12.6 m (south), but Plassart's plan would give measurements of 28 m and 15 m, respectively; the 13 m of the north wall and 2.4 m of the south wall that are missing on Bruneau's plan would have deteriorated through erosion and would have been submerged between 1912/1913 and the 1960s.

Because Plassart's original plan is not available (see above, n. 3), its merits cannot be judged. In Mazur's reconstruction, drafted in 1935 at the latest, the preserved walls are shown in black and the restored ones in white, and, remarkably, only 15 m of the north wall and ca. 12.5 m of the south wall are black. If this reconstruction is not based on Plassart's plan but on Mazur's observations before 1935, then within ca. 20 years the walls must have been destroyed to the extent that is evident today, and therefore have not suffered further damage in the nearly 70 years since. Today the north and south walls do not differ considerably in length and the sea is equidistant from both, but somehow, during those 20 years or so of heavy deterioration, the sea succeeded in destroying 13 m of the north wall but only 2.4 m of the south. The likelihood that a wall 28 m in length ever existed is further undermined by an extensive analysis of different plans. Binder argues (1999, p. 311, n. 165) that the rough drawing in the Revue biblique of 1914 indicates that "the beach was 26 m distant from the N-S stylobate . . . considerably further out than when Bruneau drafted his plan (less than 15 m from the stylobate according to Bruneau, Recherches sur les cultes de Delos, pl. A)." Apart from the fact that the distance on Bruneau's plan is actually 22-25 m and not less than 15 m, this plan was drafted by J. Replat in 1914-1918 (and only slightly modified later), as is indicated on the plan itself. The north and south walls of the courtyard are shown with the same lengths that were preserved in the 1960s and that are visible today. Exactly the same dimensions are to be found in Vallois 1953, pl. I; the plan presents the "etat de 1919, partiellement complete en 1938." Therefore, it need not be discussed further whether a wall 13 m long can have been submerged within five years; indeed, a plan drafted by L. A. Bringuier in 1907/1908 (Delos XXXIX, document VI), before the excavation of GD 80, shows the north wall of the courtyard and the east facade of the northern neighbor. This means that both walls were visible before the excavation, and, furthermore, that they have precisely the same dimensions that they have on all later plans.

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

Hesperia, Fall, 2004 by Monika Trumper

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