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The oldest original synagogue building in the Diaspora: the Delos synagogue reconsidered
Hesperia, Fall, 2004 by Monika Trumper
For these reasons, the inner, east set of holes must belong to a previous phase of use, the outer set having been used together with the wall visible today. (40) Two conclusions can be drawn from this evidence. First, the elaborate marble thresholds were originally set in a wall of lesser thickness, the later thickening of the wall (Fig. 10) with massive marble blocks requiring a shift of the pivot and bolt holes as far west as possible. (41) Second, the central threshold (Fig. 12) must have been conceived as passable like the other two and used for some time before being blocked by the partition wall of A/B; therefore, this partition wall could not have been built either before or at the same time that the east wall was renovated. (42)
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Yet to what extent, and why, exactly, was the east wall remodeled? The nature of the wall's construction might answer both questions, or at least the first. That the marble spoils were conceived as a deliberate embellishment (which might provide evidence for a new function, or at least a heightened importance, of the building) is unlikely for several reasons. The spoil material is not distributed merely for ease of incorporation or for maximum decorative effect; on the contrary, it is used with great care to stabilize the wall as much as possible. The first visible layer or course consists almost entirely of marble slabs laid as headers that span the entire thickness of the wall. In this way they form a kind of euthynteria for the wall. In the following layers or courses the reused marble blocks are set up vertically and cover only about half the thickness of the wall. The remaining spoil blocks are concentrated in the central part of the wall, framing and stabilizing its critical areas--the doorways. In short, the wall is built with a kind of framework, the marble spoil material serving as frame and studs, and the gneiss blocks as infill. The wall was not simply repaired in its upper parts, but completely remodeled down to its foundations.
To stabilize the wall further, fine white stucco was probably applied, which would have rendered the marble blocks invisible. This supposition depends on the extent of remodeling ascribed to this phase, however, as stucco is preserved only in the joint between the east face of this wall and the abutting north wall of courtyard C (Figs. 14, 15). This exterior corner of the building is only partially excavated; the exposed area includes two marble blocks, separated vertically by an intervening stone, that clearly served to stabilize the outer corner (Fig. 16). But did these blocks belong to the first building, constituting anomalies in the homogenous gneiss walls, (43) or to the renovation? Was the first gneiss facade or the marble spoil wall revetted with stucco? Neither the interior northeast corner of room A nor the southeast corner of room B provides clear evidence for either possibility. The bonding of the north wall of A with the east wall could have been effected easily during the remodeling, but, alternatively, the interior faces of the north and east walls of A might have been retained, the renovation being limited to that outer corner (Fig. 10). (44) The southeast corner of B and the northeast corner of D3 are not preserved sufficiently to permit a determination of how the three walls meeting there were bonded to one another (Fig. 17). Since a large marble statue base of Sosilos (IG XI iv, 1087) occupied the exact point at which the three walls intersect, the remodeling of the east wall was certainly extended to the corner of room B; (45) accordingly, the remodeling might have included the northeast corner of room A, which, as just mentioned, was stabilized with marble blocks like the rest of the east wall. The date of the latter is of major importance with regard to the construction sequence of the whole, as is demonstrated below.
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