Dura Europas was founded by Macedonian settlers in Syria around 312 BCE and flourished until about 272 CE. In 253 CE it was temporarily deserted because of the invasion of the Parthian King Shapur I. In 272 CE it was completely deserted because of the Parthian conquest and the change of the course of the Euphrates, which left the town too far away from its new banks.



The synagogue of Dura Europas was in a residential quarter close to the northern city wall. Archaeologists have determined that there were two building phases. The first was a rather small prayerhouse which had some paintings of biblical scenes and other walls painted to imitate marble.
The second phase included a large court with three colonades and a spacious room with a niche for the Torah shrine in the southern wall facing Jerusalem.

The four inner walls show representations of biblical and allegorical scenes, with short biblical quotations in Greek. Half the north and south walls remain and the east wall has only the bottom register of the paintings left.

The arrangement and design of the paintings can only be studied on the west wall. Some stories, such as those from Ezekiel are represented in sequence, but incidents from the lives of Moses and Elijah are arbitrary and often out of order. The painting were not all done at once.
Four major portraits are shown on the west wall, two on each side. On either side of these are two Temple scenes.
On the bottom register the two outer scenes show babies. On one side is the baby restored to life by Elijah, and on the other side the baby Moses is saved from the Nile.

Next there are two scenes refering to royalty, with Samuel anointing David on one side, and on the other Esther with Ahasuerus.
On the top register is Moses leading the people out of Egypt. The colors of the backgrounds of the different paintings are balanced to stengthen the parallelisms.

The west wall was preserved almost intact, which is lucky. It has some of the most important paintings, which are remarkable in that they not only show Jewish themes, but also show affinities to Alexandrian Hellenistic art and Parthian influences.

Some of the Hellenistic influences seen include little Victories holding out their wreath of crown while standing on the acroteria, of the Temple. Goodenough suggests in his Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period that the Victories seem to say that the Aaronic way of worship was a sort of mystery. The sacrificial animals wear Greek garlands as they await sacrifice in the Temple Three nymphs guard baby Moses while an Aphrodite-Anahita figure takes him out of his ark.



Other Hellenistic elements include pairs of harnessed felines, like those of Dionysus. Some men and women wear the Greek tunic or chiton, and many figures, like Moses and Abraham, wear over this the Greek himation with distinctive marks in the corners.

Moses is a common theme. He is shown as a baby being lifted out of the cradle. Beside the burning bush he is shown as an athletic young man in a white linen pallium, standing barefoot with his laced boots placed neatly beside him. Another fresco shows him beside a desert well from which flows 12 streams into the tents of the 12 tribes.

In the style of continuous narration, he is shown twice in the same picture, crossing the Red Sea. Another painting shows Moses giving the law, but he is holding a scroll instead of the usual stone tablets. Goodenough contends that here he is a mystic philosopher expounding the law.

The Parthian and Persian elements are seen combined with other characters. It is seen in the dress of many of the figures, like in Ezekiel's, as he wears an elaborately embroidered red Persian tunic with green pants. Other similiar dress is seen the men of the army of Saul and in the figure of Mordecai.

Many figures wear eastern caftans and trousers. The large figure of Aaron standing in the Temple wears a Persian outfit with an elaborate headress of pearls, reminscent of the Byzantine royalty, Justinian and Theodora, in the Ravenna mosaics.

Interestingly, many of the figures in the lower registers have their eyes gouged out. Goodenough contends that this shows the dissent of some members of the synagogue to having pictures of people there, that they considered them idolatrous. He writes that these defacements are slight but deeply significant, as the defacement had the magical effect of annuling the power of the image in the mind of the observers.



In conclusion, the wall painting of the Dura Europas Synagogue show biblical scenes of importance with many symbolic influences from both the Hellenistic sphere and the Persian. The paintings are of real significance in the study of Jewish and early Christian art. They are also quite important for the study of the history of religion.

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Jo Flavius, (1990) Dura Europas, Harvard University