Elche Synagogue (L'Alcúdia, Ilici)

RESUMEN

La historia de Elche Synagogue (L'Alcúdia, Ilici)

The building stands in the archaeological site of L'Alcúdia, about 3 km from Elche, which preserves the Roman town of Ilici. It was uncovered in 1905 by Pedro Ibarra and the French scholar E. Albertini, and excavated again by A. Ramos Folqués between 1947 and 1955 and by R. Ramos Fernández around 1990. In its first form it was a rectangular hall with a mosaic floor, generally dated to the 4th century CE; coins of 318-322 CE found in a wall led Ramos Fernández to propose 322 CE for its construction. A semicircular apse was probably added in the 5th century.

The mosaic includes short Greek inscriptions, among them a line read as 'proseukhe laou', 'place of prayer of the people', and terms for community officers, archontes and presbyteroi. Because proseuche is a common Greek word for a synagogue, many scholars, Helmut Schlunk among them in 1947, identified the hall as a synagogue. Since the 1980s Spanish scholarship has leaned strongly towards a Christian basilica, while scholars outside Spain have more often favoured a synagogue. The most detailed recent study, by Alexander Bar-Magen Numhauser (2021), argues that it was built as a synagogue and later converted into a church, perhaps in the 7th century. The question is not settled, and this entry should be read with that in mind.

UBICACIÓN

Where it stood

Historic: Ilici (Colonia Iulia Ilici Augusta), Late Roman town. Today: archaeological site of L'Alcúdia, Camí de Biscarra, 03290 Elx/Elche, Alicante, Spain (approximate: pin marks the archaeological site, not the building itself).

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La comunidad judía

Almost nothing is known of the people who used this building. If it was a synagogue, its inscriptions would be among the very few traces of a Jewish community in Roman Hispania. The Encyclopaedia Judaica, as reproduced by the Jewish Virtual Library, says the inscriptions, dated somewhere between the third and fifth centuries, seem to show that the Jews of Elche were organised along the same lines as Jewish communities elsewhere in the Mediterranean, with elders and leaders of the kind named on the floor. The use of Greek in a Latin-speaking town would also point to links with the eastern Mediterranean. The names of members, officers or teachers are unknown. The same encyclopaedia records nothing about Jews in Elche under Muslim rule. A later, medieval Jewish community is documented after James I of Aragon took the town in the 13th century, including a Jewish scribe in 1308 and 1314 and a tax farmer in 1381-1384, but nothing links it to this building.

Arquitectura y diseño

According to Antonio Poveda Navarro's survey of Late Antique Ilici, the first building was a rectangular hall with a mosaic pavement, generally placed in the 4th century CE. Bird bones and coins dated 318, 319 and 322 CE were found in one of its walls, and the excavator R. Ramos Fernández proposed 322 CE as the date of construction. A semicircular apse was probably added in the 5th century. Later fittings include the base of an altar, dated between the 5th and the late 6th century, and Visigothic chancel screens of the first half of the 7th century, all of which belong to Christian use. Side rooms have been compared with the pastophoria of eastern churches, though their function is doubtful. Bar-Magen Numhauser places the mosaic in an area beside the apse and suggests a 5th-century phase that may have added a niche for the Torah, and a water installation that he links to Jewish use. The dimensions of the hall, its capacity and its builder are unknown in the sources read.

La vida dentro de la sinagoga

The only direct evidence for what happened inside is the mosaic. Its inscriptions are in poorly executed Greek. One, in the upper line of a tablet with handles in the central band, has been read as 'proseukhe laou', translated as the place of prayer of God's people. Others have been read as naming archontes and presbyteroi, leaders and elders of the community; a 1999 rereading by Corell keeps only the presbyteroi and finds a phrase about people who made a vow. Near a scene with a ship is the word 'euploias', usually translated as a wish for a good voyage. Supporters of the Christian reading interpret the ship as a symbol of the Church or the sea scene as the story of Jonah. Bar-Magen Numhauser argues that menorahs were inserted into the floor in a later repair and then deliberately destroyed, an act of iconoclasm that removed Jewish symbols while leaving neutral motifs, which Lorenzo and Morcillo revealed in 2014.

Destrucción

No source read describes a violent destruction of the building, and when it ceased to be used is unknown. What can be said is that it did not remain in its first form. An apse was added in the 5th century, an altar base dated to the 5th or 6th century and Visigothic chancel screens of the early 7th century show that the hall served as a Christian church in its later phases. Scholars who see it as a church from the start regard these as normal additions. Bar-Magen Numhauser instead argues that the synagogue was converted into a church, and tentatively dates the conversion to the 7th century, connecting it with the forced conversion of Jews under the Visigothic king Sisebut. He takes the deliberate destruction of the menorahs in the mosaic as evidence for that conversion, but doubts that it was fully effective, and says it is very hard to tell whether the building was abandoned before it was converted or whether its community converted with it. Who, if anyone, removed the Jewish symbols is unknown, and how the building finally fell into ruin is not recorded.

El destino de la comunidad

The fate of the people who worshipped in this building is unknown. If it was a synagogue converted in the 7th century, as Bar-Magen Numhauser suggests, its congregation would have been caught up in the anti-Jewish laws of the Visigothic kingdom, which under Sisebut ordered Jews to accept baptism, but no source read says what happened to the Jews of Ilici in particular, and Bar-Magen himself doubts the conversion was fully effective. Ilici itself declined in Late Antiquity, and the settlement later moved to the site of present-day Elche. The Encyclopaedia Judaica entry says nothing is known of Jews in Elche under Muslim rule. A Jewish community appears again in records of the 13th and 14th centuries under the Crown of Aragon, but the same entry says nothing is known of its later fate, and there is no evidence connecting it with the Late Roman building at L'Alcúdia.

El lugar hoy

The remains lie within the archaeological site of L'Alcúdia on the Camí de Biscarra outside Elche, which is run by the Fundación Universitaria La Alcúdia of the University of Alicante and has a museum. The walls of the building were consolidated after the excavations of the late 1980s. According to a 2022 review of Bar-Magen Numhauser's study, the University of Alicante's own presentation of the site describes the building as a Christian basilica and does not mention the synagogue debate. A 2015 article by Mercedes Tendero Porras locates the building in sector 10A of the site and says the site museum displays material remains of what it presents as the oldest Christian basilica found in Elche. Where the mosaic floor and its inscriptions are kept today, and how much is visible on site, was not established from the sources read.

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