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Historic Synagogues of Europe

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Object Alone
Ancient Synagogue in Delos
Object Detail

Building Date
between 150 and 128 BCE

Synagogue active dates

Reconstruction Dates

Architect/ Maker
Unknown (Unknown)

Community

Style
Unknown|

Material/Technique

Construction Material
Stone

Summary and Remarks

Suggested Reconsdivuction

History/Provenance

"The existence of a Jewish community in Delos was mentioned in the Bible (New Testament) and was confirmed by five inscriptions from the late 2nd or early 1st century B.C.E. The ruins of the synagogue reveal that it consisted of two rooms with benches set along the western wall of the northernmost room. A marble throne and footstool still, referred to as the “Throne of Moses” still exists. An arched opening rises above a cistern which may have been a Mikve (ritual bath)." [Synagogues360]


Condition

Present Usage
Museum

Present Usage Details

Historical significance: Event/Period
One of the oldest synagogues in the world, built during the Second Temple period. Erected by a remote Jewish community.

Historical significance: Collective Memory/Folklore

Historical significance: Person

Architectural Significance: Style

Architectural Significance: Artistic Decoration

Marble "chair of Moses"


Urban significance

Significance Rating
4 (International)

Condition of Building Fabric
B (Fair)

Bibliography

Zanet Battinou, Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum Graeciae: Corpus of Jewish and Hebrew Inscriptions from Mainland and Island Greece (Late 4th c. B.C.E. - 15th Century) (Athens: The Jewish Museum of Greece, 2018), 138-151;

Alexeaner Panayotov, “Jews and Jewish Communities in the Balkans and the Aegean until the Twelfth Century,” in The Jewish–Greek Tradition in Antiquity and the Byzantine Empire, ed. James K. Aitken and Carleton Paget (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 54–76.


"Delos Synagogue,"
Synagogues360, https://synagogues-360.anumuseum.org.il/gallery/delos-synagogue/., https://synagogues-360.anumuseum.org.il/ (accessed April 7, 2024)

Messinas, Elias. The Synagogues of Greece: A Study of Synagogues in Macedonia and Thrace (Jacksonville: Bloch Publishing Company in association with Bowman & Cody Academic Publishing, 2012)., https://issuu.com/eliasblue/docs/messinas_synagogues_of_greece_do_no (accessed November 30, 2021)

Stavroulakis , Nicholas P. and Timothy J. DeVinney. Jewish Sites and Synagogues of Greece (Athens, 1992)

Short Name
Full Name
Volume
Page
Biography

Photographer
Photograph Date
2016

Remarks

0 Coordinates: 37.397541, 25.269344