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The oldest original synagogue building in the Diaspora: the Delos synagogue reconsidered
Hesperia, Fall, 2004 by Monika Trumper
A round altar of white marble that was reused as a mortar (according to Delos XVIII, p. 104), and so could have been reused as a basin as well, is located in room B just east of the relieving arch of the water reservoir (Diam. of surface with rim ca. 0.38 m, H. 0.37; here Figs. 42, 44). However, the cavity (with two diameters) that was carved into the upper surface of the altar is not very deep (ca. 0.14 m total) and shows two cuttings at its bottom (for dowels or clamps?) that are unusual and inconvenient for a mortar, and therefore were probably cut to affix something in them. The findspot of this reused altar is nowhere mentioned in the literature; photographs in Plassart 1913 (pl. V) and Plassart 1914 (p. 524) show it in room B, facing the door to this room and arranged in a line with other marble elements; in contrast, Bruneau's photograph (1970, pl. VIII:2) presents it in its position today.
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If neither the water reservoir, nor the closed room B, nor the current location between the benches in C can be regarded as a favorable position for a water basin, we must ask where the different marble basins were set up and used if they really belonged to GD 80. Levine (2000, p. 308) states, with regard to the placement of water basins in synagogues, that they were "in the middle of the courtyard (atrium), just outside the main entrance to the synagogue, or in the hall, or narthex, leading from the street into the synagogue sanctuary." Basins of different shapes, sizes, and quality have been found in various Delian contexts, e.g., in sanctuaries, houses, and agonistic establishments (see Delos XVIII, pp. 73-82). Consider also, e.g., the house for the meetings of associations, the Maison de Fourni (GD 124), where three basins (two rectangular ones and a large circular one) on high supports were found in the courtyard.
(125.) As Binder (1999, pp. 168-169, nn. 23, 24, p. 306) has argued.
(126.) See Der Neue Pauly 9, 2000, cols. 33-44, s.v. Ornament (D. Willers).
(127.) Plassart (1914, p. 531) was the first to suggest that room B was reserved for women; similarly, Binder (1999, pp. 300, 306) and Runesson (2001a, p. 187) support the idea of a separation of the sexes. But Mazur rejected this hypothesis in 1935, remarking that room B served only as access to room A (see also Bruneau 1970, p. 489). Yet women (and children?) could have been placed in room B and men in room A. The separation would not have been complete with regard to accessibility and visibility, but the arrangement still would have allowed a strict physical segregation during activities in the different rooms.
(128.) This compelling argument has been overlooked or underestimated by all researchers, supporters as well as opponents of the ritual bath theory; see below, n. 137.
(129.) A good summary regarding miqvehs in general is provided by Reich (1997); his thesis on miqva'ot (1990) was not available to me; see further Reich 1988; 1993; 1995; Wright 1997, with critical remarks on the identification and use of miqva'ot; Binder 1999, pp. 391-399; Eshel 2000; Meyers 2000; Runesson 2001c.
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