Ancient Chorazin Comes Back to Life

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“Woe unto you, Chorazin!” So says Jesus of this town in the Galilee (Matthew 11:21; Luke 10:13).

Chorazin is one of several Galilean towns condemned because they did not repent:

“Woe to you, Chorazin! woe to you Beth-saida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you” (Matthew 11:21–24).

Chorazin gets a better press in references to it in later rabbinic writings, from the third and perhaps fourth centuries. Then it is identified as one of the many “medium-size towns” in Palestine (Tosefta Makot, 3:8). Its characteristic features, as we shall describe them, are typical of these “medium-size towns.”

In the Talmud, Chorazin is also mentioned in connection with the ‘omer, the first harvest offering. There it is said that the ‘omer would have been brought to the Temple from Chorazin “if only it [Chorazin] had been nearer to Jerusalem” (Babylonian Talmud, Menahot, 85a).

Chorazin has generally been identified as the site of 024Khirbet^a Karaze in the foothills rising above the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, not far from the lake itself.

The site was first identified with ancient Chorazin by C. W. M. Van de Velde, a Dutch officer who traveled in Palestine in the middle of the 19th century. In 1905, two German scholars, Heinrich Kohl and Carl Watzinger, who were surveying the Galilee, looking for ancient synagogues, identified the remains of an ancient synagogue at Chorazin.

In 1926 Na’im Makhouly and Jacob Ory, then regional inspectors of the Department of Antiquities of the mandatory government of Palestine, cleared the synagogue and removed a later building erected on its northwestern corner. They also collected the many decorated architectural fragments scattered about the site and arranged these remains from the synagogue in some order.

In this condition, the synagogue, overlooking the Sea of Galilee, lay for more than 50 years, one of the most serenely beautiful sites of misty antiquity in the Holy Land, although few tourists knew of it.

My own work at Chorazin began in 1962. Between 1962 and 1965 I directed some excavations^b in the central part of the town in which we removed an immense quantity of stones in an effort to clear some of the walls of the ancient buildings.

Then in the 1980s it was decided to include Chorazin in Israel’s national park system. In this connection, some reconstruction of the site would be necessary; this, in turn, provided an opportunity for further excavation.^c So I returned once more to an early love. We worked at Chorazin during seven years (from 1980 through 1986) for several months each year. We have not yet finished, but enough has already been done—both excavation and restoration—to step back and to see what we have accomplished.

In short, we have brought back to life one of the “medium-size towns” of the Galilee referred to in early rabbinic writings, as this town existed in the early centuries of the Common Era.

At one time, as the Talmud tells us, there were dozens of such towns in the area. In 70 A.D. the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and burned the Temple. In 135 A.D., the Romans suppressed the Second Jewish Revolt led by the legendary Bar Kokhba. After that, Jews were barred from Jerusalem, except on special occasions. The city was rebuilt as a Roman camp and renamed Aelia Capitolina to eradicate its previous association with the Jews.

The center of Jewish gravity in Palestine then moved north, to the Galilee. Bereft of their ancient religious center, without their former political institutions, deprived of even their physical roots in Jerusalem, the Jews of Palestine proceeded to create a new, everyday life in the north. It was a way of life that would depend as little as possible on the Roman empire.

The town of Chorazin was not built on a predesigned plan. It simply follows the topography of the hill on which it is located, as is typical of these towns. A main north-south road follows the hill and provides the 025backbone for the network of streets.

Most of the area we excavated was in the center part of the city, on a flat plateau in the middle of the hill. Here, we excavated two domestic complexes (A and B) and a public building (C), in addition to the synagogue. We call the two domestic buildings complex A and complex B, rather than single houses, because they are so extensive. Each contains several living units. Each probably housed an extended family as well as some domestic manufacturing operations. All of the buildings at Chorazin, without exception, are built of hard black basalt, a volcanic rock that abounds in the area.

The ancient architects used basalt beams that averaged about six feet long. (It was rare that the beams were much longer, because although basalt is very hard, it is also brittle and tends to break.) Sometimes these beams are laid on the walls of the rooms, but this limited such rooms to a width of about six feet. To create wider roofed rooms, they sometimes built arches between two walls of a room and then placed beams from the other two walls to the center of the arch. This doubled one potential dimension of the rooms from 6 feet, the natural length of basalt beams, to about 12 feet, the distance spanned by two beams resting end to end on a supporting arch. On other occasions, they would build an internal wall in a room longer than six feet to provide support for the roof beams. Then, to allow the flow of light and air within the room, the internal walls were fenestrated with one, two and sometimes three rows of windows, thus creating a kind of lattice-work wall to support the basalt roof beams. Both types of interior walls—the fenestrated and the arched—may be seen in the picture below. This roofing system was common not only in ancient Palestine, but in other parts of the Near East as well. It was especially prevalent in the Golan Heights, to the east of Chorazin.

Between the two domestic complexes we excavated at Chorazin was a large stone-paved courtyard. The town road leads into this courtyard. From this courtyard, a beautifully preserved wide entrance leads into complex A. A smaller entrance leads from the courtyard into complex B.

Complex A consists of 14 rooms around its own 026central courtyard. Complex B has a quite different plan. The core of complex B consists of several longish rooms connected by doorways. Surrounding this core is another row of small rooms.

One long wall provides the southern wall of both complexes. We found traces of this wall to the east of complex A as well, which suggests that the wall continued and in fact enveloped a whole series of complexes, including ones we have not yet located.

In the northwestern corner of the courtyard, between complex A and B, is a roofed cistern with stone beams still resting on the arch over the cistern. Here the domestic water supply was maintained.

Complex C was, we believe, a public building, rather than a domestic building. In one of the rooms we found a hoard of bronze coins, hidden in a specially cut chamber and covered with stone slabs. This may have been part of the communal treasury. Most of the coins date to the period of Constantine the Great, the early part of the fourth century. (Other coins, from a later period, were found in the synagogue, as we shall see.)

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Another indication that complex C was a public building is that in the center of the building we found a large ritual bath (mikveh). The mikveh has a wide courtyard, partly roofed and partly open. Columns or pillars in the middle of the courtyard supported the roofed part of the courtyard. We know because we found the column or pillar bases in situ.

The bath of the mikveh was in a special plastered room. Seven steps lead down to the bathing pool. The roof over the entrance steps is still intact. Adjacent to the bathing pool is another large cistern which we believe is the otzar, or reserve pool. The otzar contained “live” water, that is, fresh rainwater, as opposed to drawn or carried water; contact with some “live” water was required in the bathing pool to meet the demands of Jewish law (halakhah).

Jewish law, or halakhah, was one of the principal elements that, in a very real sense, created the Jewish community of the Galilee in the aftermath of the Roman destruction of Judea, where the center of Jewish life and institutions had previously been located. Jewish law, as contained in the Mishnah (compiled about 200 A.D.) and as subsequently amplified in the Gemarah (compiled about 500 A.D.) regulated every aspect of daily life. The combination of the Mishnah and the Gemarah is what is usually referred to as the Talmud.^d

A second feature of post-destruction life was the physical aspect of these “medium-size towns” as they are called in the Talmud. Founded mainly in the third and fourth centuries, they provided the physical framework of ordinary life, principally in Galilee but also in other parts of Palestine.

The third feature of Jewish life at this time was the synagogue, the focal point of Jewish life, both spiritually and physically. This fact is dramatically reflected in the synagogue at Chorazin.

The Jerusalem Temple had been the House of God. The synagogue was the house of the people, of the community, an integral part of the city, located within the network of the city plan as part of the public life 028of the community. Here humans were given priority, although they were living as a community in the shadow of the almighty God.

The synagogue of Chorazin was a masterpiece of stonework. It is the jewel in the middle of the city, not on the highest place, but in the center of town on the main road.

Like all the other buildings in the town, it is built of large basalt ashlars (squared stone blocks) that were worked from volcanic boulders that the ancients had to clear in order to plant their fields.

The facade of the synagogue is on the south, facing Jerusalem, as is true of almost all the ancient synagogues of this period in Galilee. Also typical are the three entrances in the synagogue’s facade, one larger entrance in the center and a smaller entrance on either side.

Since the synagogue was built on a slope running down from west to east, it was necessary to create a level area. Originally, the western part of the plot was eight feet higher than the eastern part. To provide a level area for construction, the rock on the western side was cut out and the boulders from this area were placed on the eastern side. However, one huge boulder was left protruding into the northwestern corner of the synagogue. As it is, the synagogue in effect sits on, or fits into, a shelf cut into the slope of the hill.

The main hall of the synagogue is 65 feet long and 45 feet wide. Inside the main hall, three rows of columns—one on either side and one in the back—created a central nave and three aisles, one on each side and one in the back.

The preserved remains are considerable. Most of the stylobate (the running support base for the rows of columns) and seven column bases were found in situ. Many of the other columns and capitals were found in the debris outside the building as well as inside. Some of the beautiful stone pavement in the synagogue also survived the centuries. Indeed, there were two different floors at different times in the building, a lower one and an upper one. Even some of the original benches were found lining the walls in the northeastern corner of the main hall of the synagogue.

In front of the main hall was probably a narthex or portico, although we have only hints of it. A set of steps extending the full width of the building led up to the entrance platform. Enough of these steps survived so that it was not difficult to reconstruct the damaged part of the stairway.

In addition to these major features, we found a longish hall on the west of the main hall and two smaller rooms on the northern side of this longish hall.

Was there a second-story gallery in the Chorazin 030synagogue? This is a much-debated question, not only regarding the Chorazin synagogue, but at other ancient synagogues as well. The question is not simply architectural, for it relates to another much-debated question: Were the women in ancient synagogues consigned to the upper gallery? An earlier generation of scholars assumed they were, just as was true from medieval times to our own day in Orthodox synagogues. But now many scholars contend that gender segregation was not introduced into the synagogue until the medieval period. These scholars argue, inter alia, that there is no evidence for second-story galleries in ancient synagogues.

At Chorazin, the evidence is inconclusive. There are two possibilities. One is that the central part of the ceiling—above the nave—was raised, as was typical in the Roman basilica after which this typical Galilean synagogue was patterned. In the side walls supporting the upper roof were clerestory windows. This upper wall would have been supported by the rows of columns in the main hall. Between the clerestory windows would have been semicircular pilasters or engaged columns. This interpretation of the evidence does not provide for a second-story gallery. Another possibility, however, is that there was a gallery above the side aisles of the main hall, and that the entire roof of the building, not just the part above the central nave, was raised. We believe that the first possibility—without a gallery above the side aisles—is the preferred interpretation because it better explains the three-sided architectural elements 031found in the synagogue area. These three-sided pieces may have been parts of the engaged columns between the clerestory windows.

The most surprising and striking finds associated with the synagogue were hundreds of fragments of decorated stonework that once adorned the building. Carved from the same black basalt as the building itself, these architectural fragments tell an amazing story.

Although not many of these fragments were found in situ, the unusual number of them allows us to suggest a reconstruction.

The roof of the building, as we have indicated, was supported by rows of columns, several bases of which were found in place in the northern part of the hall. The bases rested on a stylobate that was beautifully fit to the stone pavement, as we found it in the north-western corner of the main hall of the synagogue. The stylobate was set on the natural rock, with parts of it even cut into the rock.

On one of the column bases, the letter A in Latin letter form is inscribed, probably as an indication to the workmen to put it in the right place. On other column bases, a small vertical line is inscribed, probably to indicate the correct alignment. Sometimes, the lower part of a column is cut from the same piece of basalt used for the column base, giving the impression that the column is an extension of the base.

Twelve columns stood in a U-shaped line. The columns are simple, round, and undecorated. Some are monoliths between six and eight feet long; other columns are constructed of two or even three fitted parts joined together.

The capitals on top of the columns were in some instances left unfinished. The capitals have four wing-shaped corners and pseudo-Ionic decorations; the lower part is round to fit atop the round columns. This kind of capital was also very common in Byzantine churches of the third-fourth centuries.

An architrave, the main component of the structure, which bore the weight of the roof structures, sat on the capitals. Made of monoliths more than six feet long, the architrave is without decoration. But on top of the architrave was a frieze decorated with geometrical, floral and even human reliefs!

On the frieze was the cornice, also with some decorated projections. Resting on the cornice was a subconstruction of smaller, round pilasters with Corinthian capitals. These pilasters supported the upper roof of the hall.

We also found several parts of a beautifully decorated gable from the southern facade, facing Jerusalem. Unfortunately, we cannot locate this gable at an exact location on the facade. Was the gable at the very top of the facade following the line of the roof, or did it decorate only the main entrance in the center of the facade? Or was it part of a narthex or a part of the wall of the facade?

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In any event, the gable had two parts. In the middle of the lower part—the frieze—an eagle was cut in relief and from both sides lions or other beasts were cut as a continuation. Above them was a beautiful cornice with geometrical and floral decorations cut into it in three rows.

I have mentioned that in the entrance facade were three entrances. Inside the main hall, on either side of the center entrance, were raised structures, between the center entrance and the side entrances. On one side of the main entrance was the platform for a niche in which was placed the Torah ark where the Holy Scriptures were kept. On the other side of the main entrance was a platform where the public reading of the scriptures occurred.

A small replica of the niche for the Torah ark was carved on a decorated and shaped stone that probably served as the keystone in the center of the arch of the actual niche. The replica shows that the niche for the Torah ark was between two double pilasters connected by a double arch over them. In 1980 we found one of the real double pilasters.^e Beautifully decorated, it originally stood near the southern wall of the synagogue’s main hall, between the center and western entrances in the facade, closing the left side of the stone-built niche for the Torah ark.

Two additional stones, probably from the upper part of the niche for the Torah ark, were also recovered. 035What is probably the foundation of this special structure was found in a cut along the inside of the southern wall of the main hall of the synagogue.

A similar niche was found in the famous third-century synagogue of Dura-Europos, in what is now Syria, that was excavated in 1924 near Damascus and published in 1956 by Carl H. Kraeling.

In 1926 a unique stone seat was found near the southern wall of the Chorazin synagogue. Since then it has been called the “Chair of Moses.” The Chair of Moses is a special seat that is used in some synagogues, even today, on certain occasions, usually located near the most important wall, that which faces Jerusalem.

On the Chair of Moses was inscribed in Aramaic: “Remember for good Yudan the son of Ishmael who made this stvh and its steps; may he take part with the pious.” Stvh has been understood as the Greek word stoa (v [vov] and h [he] are so-called matres lectiones, or consonants used as vowels. The Hebrew letter vov was used for a long o and the Hebrew letter he for a short a). A stoa is a portico supported by columns. Another interpretation of this work was published by Jacob N. Epstein in 1930 in a paper on the inscription on the Chair of Moses. According to his view, and ours, stvh refers to the Hebrew or Aramaic word istava which means a shelf, a platform or a small roofed and decorated dais (bema, plural bemot) on which the chair probably rested and from which the scriptures were read or chanted. A small replica of this bema was found on a frieze fragment.

In addition, we also found at Chorazin two small gables that might belong to the structures that housed the ark and the reader’s platform.

The arrangement we have suggested of the niche for the Torah ark and the dais from which the Torah was read has been found in other ancient synagogues. At Khirbet Sussiya, near Hebron, we found two bemot or platforms, one for the ark and the other where the reader of the Scriptures stood.

Similar structures were found between the main entrances in the famous synagogue at Sardis in Turkey and in a synagogue found recently at Khirbet Marous in the Upper Galilee in Israel, as well as in other places.

Thus far, I have said very little about dating—always a difficult and sensitive subject.

The synagogue at Chorazin was first built at the end of the third century or the beginning of the fourth century A.D. Probably in the second half of the fourth century, the synagogue, as well as the rest of the town, was partially destroyed by an earthquake.

The town apparently lay in ruins for some time thereafter. The Church father Eusebius, writing at the end of the fourth century, tells us that Chorazin was a destroyed village, apparently in fulfillment of the prediction in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.

After this occupational gap, possibly at the beginning of the fifth century, the town was rebuilt. The synagogue, too, was repaired and rebuilt—along the original plan, although not with the same skill and elegance.

A Christian legend, possibly from the beginning of the fifth century although preserved in a document written in 1137 by Peter the Deacon, tells us that the Jews tried to reconstruct their synagogue in Chorazin, but because of the ancient curse on the town, whatever they built by day was destroyed at night, and the city remained neglected and in ruins. It may be that this legend reflects a popular tradition based on a real situation, the evidence of which we have found in the actual conditions on the site rebuilt parts of complexes A and B, repaired parts of the synagogue and improvised walls in some parts of the buildings.

After its reconstruction in the fifth century, the city continued to exist right into the Moslem era (seventh through ninth centuries) without any great changes. Then comes another gap of two or three centuries, after which a small village was founded on the neglected debris of the ancient town. Several well-constructed houses from the 13th and 14th centuries still stand, mostly on the western part of the hill.

Coins found in the synagogue provide interesting though puzzling dating evidence. When the synagogue was rebuilt in the fifth century, a plaster floor replaced the original stone pavement. Then, perhaps at the end of the fifth century, this plaster pavement was destroyed and filled with earth. In this earth filling over 2,000 coins were found—the earliest, from the end of the fourth century, the latest, from the beginning of the seventh century. Included were two golden coins of Heraclius, dated to 612.

The two late gold coins from the seventh century indicate that this coin hoard could not be a foundation deposit—on stylistic grounds alone we know the synagogue was built much earlier. Nor was this an ordinary coin hoard, a so-called kupa, as has been found in other excavated synagogues, because this synagogue was no longer in use in the seventh century.

How can we account for all these coins over so long a period, extending into the seventh century? We have already mentioned the hoard of coins from the fourth century found in the public building we designated complex C. This was probably the community’s treasury or kupa. Such hoards are not infrequently found in excavations. But how can we explain more than 2,000 coins from a period of nearly 300 years (from the end of the fourth century to the seventh century) deposited where the floor of the synagogue had been destroyed? Clearly, they were not a hoard deposited on a single occasion. The only explanation we have been able to come up with is that these coins were thrown here over the centuries by Christian, and possibly by Jewish, pilgrims who visited the site after its destruction; the Christians perhaps came to witness the fulfillment of the Gospel prophecy of woe. Just as modern pilgrims (or tourists) throw a coin on a site to commemorate a visit or to bring good luck, so may have ancient pilgrims (or tourists).

The earliest evidence of settlement at the site comes from the northern part of the city which is the highest part of the town and was apparently the first part to 036be settled. There we found a beautifully preserved olive oil press that dates not later than the second century A.D. Olive oil was an extremely important commodity in ancient times. It was used both for cooking and as the fuel in lamps.

The manufacture of olive oil is a two-stage process: First the olives are crushed and placed in loosely woven baskets. Second, the baskets of crushed olives are stacked on a stone platform. A large stone is placed on top of the baskets and a weight applied to the stone, so that the baskets of crushed olives are pressed and the oil itself is expressed, flowing into grooves in the stone platform and finally into vats.

The first step, the crushing of the olives, was accomplished by a mill, consisting of two round stones, one vertical like a wheel and the other stone horizontal, forming a trough for the vertical wheel. The vertical wheel ran around the trough and the olives were crushed between the two stones. Moving the vertical stone (memel) over the horizontal stone (yam) crushed the olives to a soft mash.

After the mash was collected in baskets and stacked on the press, the oil was squeezed out by means of pressure.

Until about the first century A.D., the olive mash—in stacked baskets—was pressed by a beam press: The end of a beam was placed in an adjacent wall. The middle of the beam rested on the stacked crushed olives on top of which was a stone. On the other end of the beam, stone weights were tied which provided the pressure. The stones hanging from the beam could produce a pressure of some 6,000 pounds per square centimeter.^f

In the first century A.D., when the screw became common, the screw press was invented and replaced the beam press. It was a far more effective installation. Over the flat rock-cut base on which the baskets of crushed olives were placed was a horizontal beam supported by two vertical beams implanted into holes in the stone base. A large wooden screw was then placed in the horizontal beam; pressure on the baskets of crushed olives was created by turning the screw.

This was the kind of oil installation we found at Chorazin from the second century A.D. That olive oil production continued to be an important staple of the town is reflected in two other olive presses found in other sections of the town, one from the fourth century and another from the 13th century, or perhaps later.

The earliest olive press—in the northern part of the town—takes our evidence of settlement back to the second century A.D. But what of the village of Chorazin from the time of Jesus, the Chorazin referred to in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew?

This is still a mystery. From all that we now know archaeologically, it would appear that Chorazin was one of those sites founded during the influx of Jews into the Galilee following the resounding failure of the two revolts against Rome—the First Jewish Revolt that ended in 70 A.D. and the Second Jewish Revolt that ended in 135 A.D. As expelled Jews from the south moved north, they founded dozens of new towns and villages that prospered in the centuries that followed.

Yet we have clear literary evidence—from the Gospels and the Talmud—of an earlier village of Chorazin. At its height in the fourth century, Chorazin covered between 80 and 100 acres. Only a tiny portion of this village has been excavated. Perhaps we have not yet hit the first-century village, which was probably much smaller than the later expanded town built by the refugees who moved north after the Romans crushed the Jewish revolts.

Although we have not yet found the Chorazin of Second Temple times, it could not have been much different from the later town. It was probably a small Jewish village, rather than what the Talmud calls a “medium-size town.” The houses were doubtless built of the same black basalt. There was no doubt a ritual bath, and a synagogue, and even some olive presses. And this small village must have had the same serene view that Chorazin has even today, overlooking the Sea of Galilee.

“Woe unto you, Chorazin!” So says Jesus of this town in the Galilee (Matthew 11:21; Luke 10:13). Chorazin is one of several Galilean towns condemned because they did not repent: “Woe to you, Chorazin! woe to you Beth-saida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to […]