On the Archaeological Ruins of Synagogues

I think it must be interesting to know how the synagogues we had nearly 2,000 years ago were built. Archaeology gives us signs of the existence of synagogues built in Turkey, since we know that Jews lived here right after the Babylonian exile. The presence of Jews in many other countries is noted in the cemeteries, from the tombstones. From tombstones we can learn a little about family names and the profession of the deceased. A short time ago the remains of a synagogue of the Roman period were discovered in Germany, in the region of Cologne (Köln). What makes one think it may be a synagogue is that the ground plan shows the hall ending in a semicircular part to the east, and to the north of the hall there must have been something like a small pool, which could be the mikveh.

As these ruins are not very well preserved, it is thought that the building was probably a synagogue. In Sardis, the capital of the kingdom of Lydia, where for the first time in human history coins were minted, the Jews who lived there built a synagogue right next to the gymnasium, where the young Romans did physical exercise naked and went into the pool just beside it to wash and clean themselves after the games. This synagogue of Sardis consists of a single large hall. A synagogue of a similar period was found on the Greek island of Delos, near Athens. That synagogue had a wall separating men and women.

But in the synagogue of Sardis there is no trace of a wall. One side of the synagogue is attached to the gymnasium; on the other side, a wall where there must have been a market, one can see the names of the shop owners. These names are typical, well-known Jewish names. Another synagogue of the same period is at Priene. Priene is an ancient city of Ionia that had a port on the Aegean Sea. With time, through the silt of the river Maeander (Menderes), the port filled up and the city was left 7 km inland, just like Ephesus. The city of Priene was built by the famous architect Hippodamos. He planned the streets in a grid, and each block of houses formed a group of 8 houses.

Many European cities are like that today. We are not used to speaking of blocks, but that is how the ancient cities of our country were. Priene is between Kuşadası and Miletus, where Hippodamos was born. The city is built on a hill, one could almost say a mountain. The city's planning was so well done that today one can clearly see the clay pipes that brought water into the city. The other drainage pipes, which emptied the dirty water into the river, look as if they were new, recently made. The synagogue of Priene is on the terrace below the commercial market (Agora). In this market all food articles were found: meat, vegetables, fruit, etc.

Priene also had another market, the Public Market, the 'Agora of the State'. The synagogue was very small, almost like a little house, and on the walls one can see marks where there must have been benches to sit on. In the gymnasium one sees the basins as in a hamam, and in each basin graffiti the young men wrote. When you visit this gymnasium you really feel you are in a gymnasium with the young, joking athletes. In the wall of the synagogue facing east one notes something like a niche, which must have been the 'Aron ha-Kodesh'. A block of marble bears the monogram of the Menorah. (I believe the Vandals broke this marble block.)

A mikveh, not very big, is beside the entrance. One should know that the synagogues of the Diaspora (outside Jerusalem) did not have to follow the same plan as the 'Beit ha-Mikdash'. The word synagogue means 'place of assembly'. The same definition holds for the word church, or cami. The synagogue of Myra, a small town very near Finike, is very well known because it is said that 'Aya Nikola', 'Father Christmas', lived there. The Americans call him 'Santa Claus'. The church where he was buried is visited by many tourists. Later, in the Middle Ages, the Italians carried the tomb of Saint Nicholas to Bari, in Italy, near the Adriatic Sea.

In this synagogue of Myra the archaeologists found pieces of marble blocks, on one of which can be seen the Menorah and the shofar, and on the other the Menorah and the lulav. The mikveh can also be seen very well, receiving rainwater from the roof and emptying it into the river. This synagogue must date from the 5th to 7th century of our era, that is, from the Byzantine period. We hope that in the future (after the Corona era) we shall find other excavations of synagogues in Anatolia, because Jews lived in many places on these lands.