Near the synagogue, which was destroyed in the middle of the 6th century. AD, there was a farm complex and a garden.
Not far from the synagogue, which was discovered last year in Phanagoria, in the summer of 2024 they found an economic complex and a garden belonging to the Jewish community. It was part of the Jewish quarter, archaeologists believe. Websites announce the opening Volnoye Delo Foundationsponsoring the excavation, and Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Scienceswhich conducts them jointly with the Phanagoria Museum-Reserve.
The Phanagorian synagogue was a large (more than 120 sq. m.) rectangular building; it was covered with a tiled roof and decorated with painted plaster; there were marble columns, seven-branched candlesticks and tables for religious purposes made of the same stone. During excavations, special places were discovered for the ark with Torah scrolls and for reading Scripture (bimah). In the ruins of the synagogue, they found one intact and several fragments of ancient Greek inscriptions, one of which contains the word “synagogue”. The finds included 58 coins; some of them were located under the floor near the bima, benches and threshold (thus the building was protected from the evil eye); several more lay next to the lid of the donation box.
The economic complex was opened 15 meters south of the synagogue. It consisted of two rooms and a courtyard. In the latter they found amphorae, utility pits, and pithoi dug into the ground. Inside one of the rooms there was a small winery, in both rooms there were also amphorae and pithoi, some of them with burnt millet (there was also grain in the vessels in the courtyard). The fact that the complex belonged to a synagogue is indicated by several amphoras with dipinti (drawings in red paint) in the form of seven-branched candlesticks. Kosher food was stored in such vessels.
Between the economic complex and the synagogue, according to archaeologists, there was a garden. The pithoi, dug into the ground there, could be used to collect rainwater; They watered the trees with it. The Judean Quarter, researchers believe, continued to the south and west of the exposed buildings, but these parts of the development have not yet been excavated.
The fact that there was a Jewish community in ancient and early medieval Phanagoria was known even before the discovery of the synagogue. Thus, tombstones with images of the seven-branched candlestick were repeatedly found. Several manumissions of the 1st–2nd centuries AD are known. – these documents gave freedom to individual slaves if they remained to serve at the synagogue. Another Phanagorian inscription with the exact date – 51 AD. – mentions a synagogue, which means that at that time it already existed (though not necessarily in the same place).
The Judean quarter, like the entire city, perished in the middle of the 6th century. AD Many buildings, like the synagogue itself, burned down in the fire. Near it they found many stone cannonballs that were used in throwing machines. Probably, the Phanagorians tried to hide from the shelling behind the walls of the synagogue.
After the destruction, the city was empty for about 130 years. Then the Khazars came there, one of their quarters was located on the site of the destroyed Jewish one. In the Khazar Khaganate, Judaism was the official religion.
Source: www.nkj.ru
