Why is the dura europos synagogue important to judaism

From the forecourt, worshippers were able to enter the assembly room, which featured a Torah shrine in the middle of the western wall according to Judaic tradition, the most important wall, as it faces Jerusalem. The shrine was painted with faux-marble decoration, geometric patterns, and clusters of pomegranates, grapes, oranges, and cedar cones. The walls of the assembly room were covered with painted scenes, arranged in three levels, including narrative images as well as single figures from the Old Testament.

There are fifty-eight images preserved in all, probably representing about 60 percent of the original number. The pictorial sequence in the Dura-Europos synagogue is surprising to many scholars, given the prohibition against figural imagery in the Jewish tradition.

Study of this building and its decoration has fundamentally altered our understanding of religious iconography and the development of Judaism in antiquity. The distance between Dura-Europos and Palmyra, the major city in the area, is km.

The distance from Babylon is km. Art Gallery. In the infinite space of clear blue sky and bare gray desert, there was a miracle taking place, an oasis of painting springing up from the dull earth. Portion of western wall with paintings Yale Univ. For over 1, years, the site was hidden by sand and embankments in the dry climate of the area, preserving it exceptionally well to enable posterity to study the history of Dura-Europos in depth.

Block map of Dura-Europos. The Synagogue was located in Block L 7. Bryn Mawr College. According to Kraeling, 1 the Synagogue was part of a group of buildings along the wall street built in the late first or early second century CE CE. Dura-Europos was under Parthian domination at this time, a time of growth and prosperity. The excavation report suggests that a private house was probably adapted into a Jewish house of worship early in the period of Roman domination between CE.

Map of the early synagogue building Yale Univ. Art Gallery. The building had four other rooms and an interior courtyard with colonnaded porticoes. It is unique in that it was preserved virtually intact. It was preserved, ironically, when it had to be infilled with earth to strengthen the city's fortifications against a Sassanian assault in The synagogue contains a forecourt and house of assembly with frescoed walls depicting people and animals, and a Torah shrine in the western wall facing Jerusalem.