Angelos Chaniotis

Squeezed into the margins of a 9-foot-tall pillar that may have served as the Aphrodisias synagogue’s doorjamb are the words “Samuel, Elder from Perga” (ΣΑΜΟΥΗΛ ΠΡΕΣΒΕΥΤΗΣ ΠΕΡΓΕΟΥΣ). The inclusion of a representative from Perga alongside more than 120 synagogue donors reflects the importance of Perga’s Jewish community to their peers to the northwest.