Among the most distinctive discoveries from the excavations of the Roman synagogue at Sardis were many inscriptions in Greek on stone and in mosaic pavements. These proved to record gifts of portions of the rich interior decorations of the building: sections of tesselated mosaic pavement, panels with colorful, ornate cut marble mosaic wall decoration (opus sectile or skoutlosis), and various furnishings and elements of the architecture. The builders and patrons who transformed this elongated space, which had originally performed some other function in the immense Roman civic complex of the bath-gymnasium, into the house of worship for the Jewish community of Sardis, worked for generations cooperatively (and probably in some cases competitively as well) to adorn the interior and provide its rich furnishings in a manner appropriate for conducting worship in the most splendid and dignified setting possible.

Since its discovery and excavation in the 1960s, the Synagogue at Sardis has taken its place as the most significant monument of diaspora Judaism in Roman Asia Minor.For their assistance and involvement with this study, I especially wish to thank Marianne Bonz, Katherine Kiefer, David Mitten, Andrew Seager, Jane Scott, Thomas Kraabel, and L. Michael White, and Walter Ameling. Notable for its size, richness, basilical form, and prominent location within the city, the Synagogue is exceptional also for the more than eighty inscriptions recovered from its interior. With the exception of six fragments in Hebrew,To be published by Frank M. Cross in the final Synagogue volume. The Hebrew texts, all inscribed on fragments of marble wall revetment, give the words, “Peace (Shalom)” (Hanfmann 1972, fig. 86; Seager and Kraabel 1983, 171, fig. 269) and “vow” (twice each), and two proper names, Yohanan and Severus (formerly read as “Verus” [Hanfmann 1967, 25, n. 25; Seager and Kraabel 1983, 171, 179, n. 9]). the inscriptions are in Greek and for the most part commemorate members of the congregation who contributed the many elements of interior decoration: the mosaics on the floor, the marbling of the walls, and a number of architectural and ritual furnishings.