Mysterious Jewish Building in Roman Turkey

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Limyra, on the southern coast of modern Turkey, was an important city in ancient Lycia. A settlement existed here since at least the sixth century B.C.E. It enjoyed its first heyday in the fourth century B.C.E. when it became the residence of an aspiring east Lycian dynasty that ended abruptly and somewhat mysteriously—but not before an extensive building program had been undertaken. This included a massive ring of walls surrounding an area of 60 acres. On the summit of the acropolis was a large fort with two imposing towers or bastions. Down the slope was the lower city with a monumental entrance gate, the largest in Lycia in the Classical period.

A huge heroon was also erected on the acropolis. Built as a magnificent tomb in the form of a Greek temple with four larger-than-life caryatids—instead of columns at each façade—the heroon was dedicated to the ruler’s dynasty.

In the area around the city were five necropoleis with roughly 400 tombs, by far the largest number of all Lycian cities.

The most spectacular of the necropoleis is Necropolis I, located 034035high above the valley about 2.5 miles from the city. Its nine tombs belong to the most beautiful and well-preserved examples of Lycian funerary architecture.

From the Hellenistic period (lasting approximately from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C.E. to the beginning of Augustus’s reign in 31 B.C.E.) and the Early Imperial period (in the first century C.E.) only a few structures survive, but they are of exceptional quality. One is a temple with a massive, square-shaped socle (wall base), a circular temple above, and a conical roof for the Ptolemaic ruler’s cult built in the third century B.C.E. The exterior of the circular building was decorated with a frieze of a chariot race. The sculptural decoration also included metopes displaying a centauromachy and colossal marble lions set up at the corners of the lower story.

On February 21, 4 C.E., Gaius Caesar, grandson and adopted son of the emperor Augustus, died in Limyra at the age of 24 on his way back to Rome from a diplomatic mission in Armenia. A cenotaph (memorial monument) was erected at the site, the massive cement core and some ashlars of which are preserved. It was originally faced with a marble frieze nearly 200 feet long with life-size scenes from his life. Above was a pyramidal marble roof.

A surviving theater was originally built in the second–first century B.C.E. and was extensively restored after a catastrophic earthquake in 141 C.E. The auditorium accommodated about 20,000 visitors.

The most remarkable monument of Limyra in the Roman Imperial period is a bridge approximately 2.2 miles east of the city. It is not only one of the oldest segmented arch bridges in the world, but with a length of 394 yards, it also has to be regarded 036037as the largest surviving engineering achievement of antiquity in Lycia.

In the Byzantine period, Limyra was the seat of a bishop. The Episcopal (Bishop’s) Church of the late fifth or sixth century C.E. was destroyed probably during the course of the Arab invasions in the second half of the seventh century. The building was a three-aisled basilica with a transept in front of the apse. Two other basilical churches served Limyra’s Christians in the Byzantine period.

The history of excavation in Limyra is a long one. After various expeditions throughout the 19th century, modern research began in 1966 with an expedition led by the German archaeologist Jürgen 038Borchhardt on behalf of the German Archaeological Institute/Istanbul Branch. I joined the team as a young student during the 1980s. Since 2008, I have served as head of the excavation.¹

I vividly remember in the 2012 season excavating near the east city gate and discovering a building that seemed strange from the very beginning. So far only one room has been completely excavated and two others partially excavated, so we don’t even know its complete plan. Room 1 is square and measures about 46 feet on a side. It is contiguous with the city wall. This wall was probably built in the fifth century C.E. and strengthened in the seventh century C.E. as a preventive measure against the threat of Arab invasions.

In one corner of Room 1, we found a square water basin or tub about 4.25 feet long and 3 feet deep. The floor of the basin is covered with marble slabs. Its interior and exterior walls are covered with hydraulic plaster. Inside the basin on one side is a bench made of hewn stones. In the northwestern corner of the basin’s wall is an indentation 2 feet wide and less than a foot deep. Here was where the basin was entered. This and the hewn stone bench inside make it clear that the basin was used for human bathing.

The water was supplied by a clay pipeline through which rainwater was collected from the roof of the building. It is perhaps not too early to note here that water for the basin was thus taken from natural water circulation, thereby fulfilling an important criterion for a Jewish mikveh (ritual bath).

Outside the basin, two further low benches made of hewn stones were found in the room.

In addition to the water basin and the benches, there were several other unusual features in Room 1. The floor was paved mostly with marble and clay slabs. The paving slabs that were laid from the entrance to the basin were substantially larger than in the other areas of the room. Different from the other slabs, they were also completely regularly worked and accurately placed in order to define a clear path through the room.

It was not only the floor of Room 1 that featured 039precious materials. Fragments of window glass of four different colors suggest that there was at least one window in the room that opened onto the street. Moreover, the benches and at least the lower parts of the walls were clad with marble.

In short, this was not just a simple house on the eastern border of Limyra.

Room 1 was approached from the street by a vestibule (Room 2). The floor of the vestibule lay below muddy groundwater. For this reason, the original floor cannot be ascertained. At some later date, it was overlaid with used stone slabs and pillars that were deliberately broken for this purpose. At one point, I noticed below the muddy groundwater on one of these pieces of pavement a depiction of a menorah and a shofar (a ram’s horn blown in the synagogue on the new year). A second slab was decorated with a menorah and a lulav (a palm frond shaken on the festival of Sukkot, the Feast of Booths or Tabernacles). The menorah, shofar and lulav are frequently pictured together in ancient synagogues. These slabs are apparently the remains of synagogue chancel screens.

Another room (Room 3) was probably an adjacent courtyard. On one of its wall were the remains of two additional benches of hewn stone.

The precise history of this building cannot be determined because of the high groundwater level. The muddy earth makes an exact stratigraphy almost impossible. Nevertheless, after just the first excavation season, three different building phases can be ascertained. In a final building phase, the water basin and the benches were built, and the unusual 040paving with menorahs was laid on the floor. In short, it appears that this building had features of a synagogue in both an early and late phase. The chancel screens that were laid as paving in the vestibule indicate that the water basin can be viewed in connection with a Jewish structure. Even if these slabs were laid in secondary usage to raise the floor level against the gradually rising groundwater, they nevertheless indicate that a synagogue was once located in the immediate vicinity. These slabs are without doubt remnants of screens that separated the Torah shrine from the rest of the hall. Such chancel screens have been found in many synagogues near the Torah shrine.² It is therefore not improbable that the building partially excavated in Limyra was itself a synagogue.

A Jewish community has not been attested before in Limyra. The only evidence to date for Jewish inhabitants is a Greek inscription on a rock tomb in one of the city’s necropoleis: Εἰούδα εἰρόν—Tomb of Iudas. Nevertheless, there likely was a Jewish community here in the Late Antique period because such a population was present in every town larger than Limyra on the southern coast of Asia Minor, as evidenced by extensive epigraphic evidence of Jews and Jewish buildings.

The date of our structure at Limyra is still uncertain. A building was surely here by the fifth century C.E., but we cannot state with any certainty for what purpose the building was erected. Room 1 was part of an enlargement of the building. In the course of a later renovation or redesign, the water basin and benches were built, and the floor was repaved. Perhaps the building represents a synagogue, for which a pre-existing house was adapted. That the chancel screen slabs were intentionally broken to be used secondarily for paving suggests that the building in its final phase fulfilled another function—the Jewish symbols having been deconsecrated and reused for profane purposes. If the complex was rebuilt into a domestic residence, this room could have been used as a bathroom without cultic significance.

Hopefully, future excavations here and elsewhere in Limyra will provide answers to many of these intriguing questions.

Recent excavations in Limyra, Turkey, have uncovered a mysterious building near the city’s east gate. Although the structure has been only partially excavated, Jewish iconography and architectural features have already surfaced. Could it be a synagogue?