Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

eligious architecture 969
in the village of Dar Qita were built or modified in 515 and 566 respectively
(Fig. 42). 79
2. Synagogues
The synagogue had similar architectural requirements to the church, as it was
a place for prayer and reading the Torah, as well as a house of assembly.
Attached to its main building could also be a ritual bath, an infirmary and a
hostel. Out of some 120 synagogues known, at least 100 are situated in the
Holy Land. The largest, however, was excavated at Sardis in Asia Minor. This
was probably a secular building which was acquired and converted for use as
a synagogue. Like many others, it was basilical in form. Other diaspora synagogues
from the Roman period have been excavated at Ostia near Rome,
Naro near Carthage and Elche in Spain, and at Stobi, Corinth, Aegina, Delos,
Priene, Miletus, Dura Europos, Apamea and perhaps Mopsuestia in Cilicia,
Neocaesarea (Dibsi Faraj) on the Euphrates and Emesa (Homs) in Syria.
Further diaspora synagogues are known from texts. Those at Antioch,
Callinicum, Edessa, Berytus and Gerasa were destroyed or converted to
other uses between 350 and 530. In the Holy Land, synagogues are referred
to in written sources or have been excavated in both city (including Caesarea,
Gaza, Jericho, Scythopolis, Tiberias, Gadara, Birosaba) and village, wellknown
rural examples being those at Capernaum and Beth Alpha. 80
What most synagogues shared was prayer directed to Jerusalem (shared
also with eastern churches), and the use of Jewish symbols in the decoration.
The wall facing Jerusalem had an aedicula or niche on a raised platform
for holding the Torah scroll kept in an ark, as at Horvat Susiya in
Palaestina Prima (Fig. 63). Recent studies in synagogue architecture have
focused on the Torah shrine and on problems of dating. It now seems that,
as with other buildings, the sixth century was an important period for synagogue
building in the near east. The location of the Torah shrine within
the synagogue varied locally. By the fifth century, a church-like apse was
sometimes added to an existing synagogue to hold it, replacing the smaller
aedicula or niche; by the sixth century, the apse was an integral architectural
feature, except in the north of Palestine. Synagogues were often elaborately
decorated. The Jerusalem Talmud states that during the late third
and fourth century the walls and floors of synagogues started to be decorated
and that this was tolerated. Tessellated pavements (illustrating the
Temple façade or Torah ark flanked by the menorah, shofar, lulav and
ethrog; the zodiac; biblical scenes; animals) were certainly common in synagogues
between the fourth and the sixth century. 81
79 Khatchatrian (1982). 80 Levine (1981); Hachlili (1989).
81 Levine (1981) 15–18; Hachlili (1989) 1–6, 65–100.
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