User:HelenZEstrella/Dura-Europos Torah Shrine

Torah Shrine

Dura-Europos archival photograph,YUAG Negative Number: dura-fI10~01

The major function of the Torah Shrine is to enhancing the west wall. It is also the most substantial decoration of the synagogue that provided westward orientation towards Jerusalem for worship. It's the shrine to hold the Torah, the book which Judaism was founded. The curved niche is decorated by a well-defined, radiating-shaped shell, and the seat can be approached by three steps. The niche is framed by a rectangular arch and two columns supported an arched, lintel area. The facade is painted with abbreviated Jewish symbols.

The decoration of the Torah Shrine consists of two elements. The first one includes, "the uppermost step of the niche-block, the columns of the facade, and the intrados of the archivolt. " The second one involves important religious scenes, objects and pictures of Jewish worships.

The interior of the niche consists of three parts: the conch had a light-blue color that faded all at once after the excavation. The outer surface of the shell is a rich green color. The column and the bottom of the niche are painted to look like as they are made of marbles. The bottom of the niche consists of five rectangular panels that are framed on top and bottom by pink bands, and there are red vertical bands to separate them from each other. Out of the five panels, one and five are a pair and two and four are another pair: they are all designed by the same fashion. For the first and the fifth panel, the artists used black diagonal lines to divide triangular patterned designs. Opposing triangles on the top and the bottom of the panel has red stripes and are inscribed with peltae. Opposing triangles on the sides of the panels are decorates with brown-lined irregular concentric shapes, with a green dot in the middle of each. On the second and the fourth panels, the outer frame is decorated with red and pink bands, and alternating red dots and strokes against the white background, with bead-and-reel designs on the corners. On the corners of the strips, there are three-petal like strokes. Inside the frame, there are wavy green and dark green curvy lines of different thickness drawn from the top left and right corners of the panel towards the middle. The central panel of the niche consists of a veined black diamond with a yellow circle in the middle. The diamond is framed with the same bead-and-reel design that surrounded the second and the fourth panels. The four triangles that are on the side of the diamond are decorated in brown colors.

The most important design of the Torah shrine is the front face of the arch. The spandrels formed a rectangle that is 1.47m wide and 1.06m high, which framed by a pink border that is 0.04m-0.05m wide. Inside the pink border there is a black line framing the arch. The rectangular panel is painted with a light blue color. On the arch, there are multiple objects portrayed about the important objects of the Jewish life at this time. In the middle of the arch, there is a tetrastyle, rectangular architectural object. On the right, there is the image of the Scarification of Issac, and on the left is the great Menorah, an ethrog(citron) and a lulab(a palm-branch).

The man on the right is Abraham, he is dressed in a white himation and a long-sleeved white chiton decorated with two pink clavi. He's in a pair of brown short boots up to his ankle, that covered his reddish legs. His right hand sticks out and holds a white, large, sharp knife. For his head, we can only see his black hair, which indicated that he is portrayed from the back. The reason why Abraham is portrayed from the back still remained questionable, but it is a choice of the artist to associate Abraham from certain things and disassociated him from other factors. There are several explanation of why Abraham is portrayed from the back: Jewish artist feels reluctant to portray the human form; the artist's desire to avoid the front and the evil eye; the pursue to have all figures pay attention to the Hand of God or the Hut on top of the frame; the practical adjustment to fit the frame. On the left of Abraham, there is a large white altar outlined in black, which is the first object that he is associated with. The altar consists of several rectangular blocks that are on top of each other, some cylindrical blocks and projecting fillets. The shape of the altar is different from all the other altars in the synagogue. On top of the altar, there is a pink mass that draped over the altar that represents the fagots.

How to interpret the Sacrifice of Issac leaves many questions that the scholars considered as the obstacle to interpret the composition comprehensively. For example, Grabar suggested that the Sacrifice of Issac is a last minute painting to replace the second Menorah, which is a frequently appeared Jewish symbol. Other scholars have thought thematic explanations of its meaning. For example, Du Mesnil Du Buisson notes the place where the Sacrifice happened, Mt.Moriah, which is also the place where the temple was built.

Another thing that Abraham is associated with is the Hand of God that's above the altar. This hand appear the first time in the usage of the synagogue. It is a representation of the conventional Jewish art in the third century, and it represents god's influence in worldly affairs. The appearance of hand is not the divine's command on Abraham, but the miraculous appearance of the ram in the shrub. The difference between the Hand of God and the other decoration of the synagogue is that at the wrist of the red Hand there is a white mass that has a black and red border, which could represent either a "light of the divine presence, a sleeve, or a cloud." In terms of iconography, the hand of God was "accepted as just one more deviation from Scripture".

Under the altar, the artist is disassociating Abraham with the details of the scene presented at the bottom of the plate. These details include the ram, which the supply of divine intervention that is unknown to him, and the tree with its trunk outlined in red and brown. The trunk curves to the left, with the black and green crown placed below the altar. The body of the ram is outlined in brown.

On the top right corner of the plate, there is an object that the artist drew that would lead to many discussions. The probable interpretation of this object is a conical, light green tent.There is a curve on the side showing the interior of the tent, which is painted in pink. On top of the tent there is also a piece of pink, which shows that the tent has a flap that can be rolled back. Inside the tent stood a little human figure that dressed in white chiton and pink clavi. The figure is also drawn from the rear. In recent discussions, there is also another view that the tent is a temple, and the little figure is either Abraham or Issac. This drawing could also be interpreted as the tent is the one that Abraham took when he was on his three-day journey to Moriah. The small figure in the picture is one of the two men that were left behind the sacrifice.

On the left side of the plate, to balance with the sacrifice of Issac, there are three other iconic Jewish symbols. The most predominant one is the golden Menorah, its shape drastically different than the ones on the narrative panels of the synagogue. The menorah has 7 arms that are supported on a narrow waist base that were supported by three two-balls legs. On the narrow waist, a eight-pointed rosette or star is drawn. The seven arms of the lamp stand represent the "knops" of the biblical description. On top of each arm holds a lamp in which the shape is similar to the earthenware that were commonly use in Roman Orient, which has a curved handle and a projecting nozzle on separate ends. A flame appear on the right of each nozzle, and the direction is to the north. On the side of the menorah, two objects are depicted with symbolic importance. One is the ethrog (citron), which appear as a yellow ball. The other is the yellow lulab, its' spined palm leafs were wounded. These are fruits belonging especially to the Jewish New Years Festivals. The ethrog and the lulab were depicted because in Midrash, the god forgive people's sins when they appear before his presence with the lulab and the ethrog. Both the menorah and the fruits are direct reference to the high holy days of Rosh ha-Shanah.

In the center of the facade there is a temple-liked structure, which its identity needs some discussion. The decoration of the temple is done in yellow, which represents gold. It is contrasted with a pink background. The framework of the structure composed of a crepidoma, on either side, there is a pair of long, slender column. The columns have fluted to one third of its height, and a molded entablature. The columns ends in Egyptianizing capitals, and it has plinths and bases. The entablature is composed of a simple architrave with semicircular antefixs surmounted it. In the center of the outer frame work of the temple contains a small architectural structure painted yellow. This part of the painting is framed by two smaller, spirally-decorated columns that support a rounded architrave that holds a shell or a fan on top which encircled by an arch. The capitals of the column are different, but they are probably against Egyptianzing. Kraeling first identified this building in the Aaron ha-Kodesh, or cabinet that storage the scroll of the Law. He later changed this interpretation, and two other scholars, Grabar and Goodenough, interpret this architectural structure as a collection of Jewish symbols. It is seen as a representation of the Jewish faith. People who argues against that say only three objects are associated with the central structure at Dura, and the objects that traditionally associated with such scenes are all not included.

There are some conclusions that can be drawn about the facade of the Torah Shrine. The first conclusion is about the relations between the various elements to each other. All three elements in the facade were organized by locality, including the temple in the center, the Sacrifice of Issac on the right, and the ceremonial objects on the left, because they represents the objects and events of the holy hills of Jerusalem. They deal with the basic problem of men's reconciliation with god. It deal with the obedience of men to god, and men's sacrifice to god.

The second conclusion regards the issue concerns the connotation of the Torah Shrine relates to its facade. The relation between the Torah Shrine and the Scroll Chest it contained is similar to the relationship between the schematized Temple and the Ark of the Covenant on the coin. On the coin issued by the Second Revolt of Hadrian, the design has similar framework with the central elements on the Torah Shrine. "The design consist of crepidoma, terminal parts of the columns, and entablature, and shows within this rectangular framework a rectangular device, rounded at the top and supplied with two boss-like projections on its face." The columnar structure of both structures are similar, so as the form between the Ark of the Covenant that represents in the Synagogue's pictorial panels, and the Scroll Chest shaped to fit into the conch-headed recess of the Torah Shrine.

The third conclusion about the Torah Shrine is that its iconography and the techniques had not been used on other parts of the Synagogue. On many salient points of the Torah Shrine, the iconography of the repertory differs significantly from the narrative panels of the Synagogue. The differences of forms are presentable in the Temple, Menorah, lulab, altar, tree, and Hand of God. The artist who painted the Torah Shrine also did not use blue in other parts of the Synagogue. He also painted with a finer brush, and his works also lacks assurance of lines and dexterity than the stories of the narrative panels. His solution on the arrangement of the Sacrifice of Issac on limited space is comparable to the solutions of similar problems on the narrative panels. These facts indicate that the painting of the Torah Shrine was done by other artists who paints the narrative panel.

St.Clair offers another explanation to the Torah Shrine at Dura, is that the whole decoration is elaborated based on a single event, the Feast of Tabernacles. He believes that this can better explains the juxtaposing and the selection of the images on the Torah Shrine.This is originally a harvest festival, and it was celebrated in the past as it will be celebrated in the future. One distinctive ceremony of the festival is the celebrants carries the lulab and ethrog when they encircling the altar daily. The Feast of Tabernacles is a festival where all the Jewish hopes and faiths were expressed. The festival was originally celebrated in the Temple, and then after the Temple was destroyed it was continued to be celebrated in the Synagogue. The iconography objects, the lulab and the ethrog had been depicted on many other objects. In this context, the hut on the top right of the decoration can be considered as the booth Abraham made to celebrate the feast. The green color suggests that the living twigs that formed the booth. The booth at Dura differs from the others in one detail, that is the open top reveals the pink inside. This feature can be explained by the requirements in the Mishnah, where the top of the booth should be open to allow sun, rain and snow to go through. The figure that stands in the tent is not important because it is the representation of the whole feast that is important rather than the individual. The promise of Israel's deliverance is illustrated by both the sacrifice and by the feast celebrated. To this end, the Hand of God comes not only to show the divine's intervention on people, but also the fulfillment in the rebuilt Temple at the center of composition. In Zachriah's prophecy, every nation will come and celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.Thus, the lulab and ethrog besides the temple and the menorah, represents the symbolic light of Zachriah's vision and the specific Jewish hopes for the future.

Holes

There are 4 holes in the Torah Shrine facade. Each hole was about one centimeter in diameter, and the depth is also one centimeter. Two of the holes are besides the tent on the blue background of the Sacrifice of Issac, and the other two holes are on the opposite side of that, above and upon one lamp of the menorah. These two last holes were also broken apart, which indicates people had violently remove the thing that the holes held.

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