The Synagogue at Dura

The Dura Synagogue and Visual Midrash

An amazing archaeological hoard lay hidden high on a promontory overlooking a bend in the middle of the Euphrates River. This unusual treasure was known as early as 1872, but real interest did not begin to percolate till a British army unit engaging in skirmishes with local Bedouins entrenched itself in a walled fortress and came upon paintings while digging into the earth fill. It was then, in April 1920, that Professor J. H. Breasted of the Oriental Institute, visiting in Baghdad some three hundred miles to the southeast, was called to the site and took notes, measurements, and photographs. [1] And well it was that he took those photographs, albeit without details, because the local Bedouins, educated to iconoclasm, promptly gouged the eyes of the applicants in the sacrifice of Konan on the south wall of the newly uncovered Temple of Bel.https://rsc.byu.edu/scriptures-modern-world/dura-synagogue-visual-midrash

Dura on map

Dura – Torah Niche

Dura Walls

Pharoah’s Daughter with Moses

Dura One wall

Dura Esther

dura torah wall

Esther

Dura Consecration

Dura Akedah

Dura Torah

dura torah wall