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The oldest original synagogue building in the Diaspora: the Delos synagogue reconsidered
Hesperia, Fall, 2004 by Monika Trumper
(130.) Reich 1997, p. 431.
(131.) For the water management of the domestic architecture of Delos, see Delos VIII, pp. 323-351.
(132.) Water certainly could not have been drawn from room B because the poros vault of the reservoir has no opening (see Bruneau 1970, pp. 481-482, 490-491). Whereas the face of the marble relieving arch is smooth in room B and therefore could have been covered with stucco easily, it is very uneven in D1 and would have to have been concealed under several thick layers of plaster, as some of the blocks project beyond the south face of the wall.
(133.) Abundant evidence of fire was found during excavation of the fill of the water reservoir; see Bruneau 1970, pp. 481-482.
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(134.) The discrepancy between the elaborate nature of the vault and a makeshift provision such as the imagined wooden ladder becomes even more obvious if this installation is compared with several water installations in Delos that are equipped with steps for human access. Cf. (a) the crypts in Sarapieion A and Sarapieion B (Siard 1998); (b) the Fontaine Minoe (GD 30); (c) the round fountain with six steps leading downward that was excavated under the courtyard of the Prytaneion (GD 22; Etienne and Farnoux 1988, figs. 4, 5, 8); and especially (d) the reservoir in a nearby house (Quartier du stade, Ilot II, Maison A, GD 79b; see Fig. 1, above), where an elaborate staircase with 22 steps leads down into a round reservoir with a diameter of 4.3 m and a depth of 6.2 m, which was roofed by means of three poros arches. Bruneau (1982, pp. 499-502) has identified this reservoir as a pool for ritual bathing and the house as a Jewish residence; however, the construction history of this house comprises two major phases that cannot both be easily reconciled with Jewish ownership (see Trumper 1998, pp. 222-223, fig. 24, and in detail in a work in preparation).
(135.) Therefore, the only objection that Bruneau (1970, p. 491) brings forth against his own hypothesis is not relevant: a drain is not necessary in connection with a natural pool, but only with a real miqveh.
(136.) See above, n. 124.
(137.) White (1987) and all the followers of the private house idea must necessarily dismiss the water reservoir as an ordinary cistern: Kraabel (1995, p. 110), McLean (1996, p. 194, with the incorrect statement that the cistern "could also be reached from room B"), Hachlili (1998, p. 38), and Claussen (2002, pp. 193, 220). In opposition to these, Runesson (2001c, p. 124, n. 84) advances the idea of a ritual bathing pool, citing on p. 84, n. 302, further supporters of this theory; he also suggests (Runesson 2001a, p. 187, n. 72) that in the first phase the cistern was used by members of some non-Jewish cult. Indeed, the Jews might well have chosen the building because of this unique cistern, which provided immediate access to water for ritual purposes. Levine (2000, p. 101) states that "the cistern found there might have functioned as a miqveh." Binder (1999, p. 306) remarks that "although there is no proper mikveh associated with the building, its location near the ocean parallels the placement of other synagogues near bodies of water." Binder (1999, pp. 314-317) goes on to propose two possible patterns of occupation of GD 80: in the first scenario a pagan cultic building was transformed into a synagogue, in the second the building was originally built as a synagogue. Although the unusual design of the reservoir would support his second scenario, as he correctly observes (Binder 1999, pp. 314-315), he seems to favor scenario number one (pp. 314-317).
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