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CNN
30-07-2025
- Science
- CNN
Roman-era ‘church' in Spain may have been a synagogue
Archaeologists working at a site in Spain say they have uncovered evidence of what may have been a synagogue used by a hitherto unknown Jewish community. While excavating the site, previously believed to be a church dating from the 4th century, experts found materials and architectural evidence that led them to hypothesize that the building was, in fact, a synagogue, according to a study published earlier this month. Artifacts such as fragments of oil lamps and a piece of roof tile decorated with menorahs were found during excavations in Cástulo, a former Roman settlement in southern Spain, whereas no materials that have a clear association with the Christian faith have been found at the site. In contrast, archaeologists have found evidence of Christian worship at another site in the town, study author Bautista Ceprián, an archaeologist with the Cástulo Sefarad Primera Luz project, told CNN on Wednesday. The building also has a squarer shape than Christian churches, which tend to be more rectangular, and archaeologists found what could have been a hole for supporting a large menorah, as well as the foundations of a central raised platform, or bimah, which is common in synagogues but not in churches, he added. In addition, no tombs were discovered at the building, which was built near an abandoned Roman temple — something that would have been feared by Christian residents because of its association with paganism, he added. 'It's a hidden, discreet and isolated spot that would not have been visited often by the Christian majority,' Ceprián said. Taken together, this evidence points to the existence of a previously unknown Jewish community in the town, the study authors argue. 'The reinterpretation of the building from a church to possibly a synagogue followed a process of logical reasoning based on the historical and archaeological data in our possession,' Ceprián said. Nonetheless, the lack of written records of a Jewish community in Cástulo leaves room for some doubt, as the study authors acknowledged. Speculating about the daily life of the community would be 'a very dangerous exercise,' Ceprián said, but they would have lived alongside their fellow Roman citizens in the town. The population is then thought to have disappeared, as it is not named in the anti-Jewish law enacted by Visigoth King Sisebut, who ruled what is now Spain from 612 to 621, whereas the Jewish communities in other nearby towns are specifically named. As for what would have happened to them, 'it is difficult to know,' Ceprián said. One possible explanation is that the Christian clergy feared the local population would convert to Judaism, given the 'close and friendly relations' between the two groups in the region at the time, he said. This concern drove Christian leaders, who were becoming increasingly influential in the Roman Empire, to foment fear of and opposition to Jewish communities, said Ceprián. This culminated in episodes starting around the end of the 4th century in which Jewish citizens were pressured to convert to Christianity, with those who refused 'amicably invited' to leave their hometowns, he said, adding that this kind of incident could have plausibly occurred in Cástulo sometime between the end of the 5th century and the beginning of the 7th century. Now the team will work to protect the site and excavations will continue, Ceprián said. They aim to allow the public to visit at some point in the future, he added. 'We can't rule out the possibility of finding more definitive evidence that allows us to update our hypothesis of a possible synagogue to an actual synagogue,' he said. Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.
The Guardian
27-07-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
Spanish discovery suggests Roman era ‘church' may have been a synagogue
Seventeen centuries after they last burned, a handful of broken oil lamps could shed light on a small and long-vanished Jewish community that lived in southern Spain in the late Roman era as the old gods were being snuffed out by Christianity. Archaeologists excavating the Ibero-Roman town of Cástulo, whose ruins lie near the present-day Andalucían town of Linares, have uncovered evidence of an apparent Jewish presence there in the late fourth or early fifth century AD. As well as three fragments of oil lamps decorated with menorahs and a roof tile bearing a five-branched menorah, they have also come across a piece of the lid of a cone-shaped jar bearing a Hebrew graffito. While experts are split over whether the engraving reads 'light of forgiveness' or 'Song to David', its very existence points to a previously unknown Jewish population in the town, which eventually fell into decay and abandonment 1,000 years later. The discovery of the materials has led the team to consider whether the ruins of a nearby building, assumed to be an early Christian basilica dating from the fourth century AD, could perhaps have been a synagogue where Cástulo's Jewish community came to worship. When the site of the supposed church was first excavated between 1985 and 1991, archaeologists assumed it was a Christian edifice. 'During the 2012-2013 [dig], we found the roof tile with the five-armed [menorah],' said Bautista Ceprían, one of the archaeologists working on the Andalucían regional government's Cástulo Sefarad, Primera Luz project, which aims to uncover the town's Jewish history. 'Until that moment, we didn't know that there could have been a very small Jewish community in Cástulo.' In a recently published paper, Ceprián and his colleagues David Expósito Mangas and José Carlos Ortega Díez consider the possibility that the 'church' could in fact have been a synagogue. They argue that the lack of Christian materials in the site, combined with an absence of evidence of burials or religious relics – which would normally be expected in a Christian church of the era – could point to its use as a Jewish temple. A nearby baptistry, in contrast, has already yielded Christian finds and burials. Jewish religious law, however, forbids burials within 50 cubits (23m) of a residential area. 'When we looked at the interior of the building a little more closely, there were some strange things for a church; there was something that could have been the hole for a big menorah,' said Ceprián. 'It's also strange that this building doesn't have any tombs.' The authors also point to the site's architectural features, such as its layout, which is reminiscent of some synagogues found in Palestine. 'Synagogues of that time could be more square in shape than Christian basilicas because in Jewish worship, there's usually a central bimah [raised platform], which people sit around,' said Ceprián. 'In a church, the priest performs the rituals in the apse, which means things are more rectangular.' Then there is the location of the possible synagogue; it would have sat in an isolated part of town near a ruined Roman bathhouse that would have been feared and hated by the local bishops. Sign up to Headlines Europe A digest of the morning's main headlines from the Europe edition emailed direct to you every week day after newsletter promotion 'The Roman baths were the last pagan place that remained in a city,' said Ceprián. 'It was something diabolical and therefore something that had to be outside the Christian world. It seems to be the case that the baths in Cástulo had already been closed by the end of the fourth century, or the beginning of the fifth century.' He argues that the synagogue's location, so close to a font of paganism, would have helped the local Christian hierarchy in its efforts to conflate Judaism with unholy practices: 'The Jews would have had few options and at that moment it's clear that it's the bishops who are fundamentally organising the town – and it would allow them to relate Jews with evil.' If the researchers' theories were to be confirmed, the Cástulo synagogue would be among the very oldest Jewish temples on the Iberia peninsula. Spain's handful of surviving original synagogues are mainly medieval. The most recently discovered synagogue, in the Andalucían city of Utrera, dates from the 1300s. The problem for Ceprián and his colleagues – as they acknowledge – is the lack of written historical corroboration. 'I'm sure there will be criticism, which is totally legitimate – that's how science works and how it has to work,' he said. 'But of course we believe we've provided data with enough seriousness to allow ourselves to posit it.' Whether the building was a church or a synagogue, those digging up Cástulo have uncovered evidence of what would appear to be a small Jewish community living, if only for a while, in peaceful coexistence with their Christian neighbours. As the centuries wore on and the church propagated the otherness of Spain's Jewish inhabitants in order to forge and galvanise a Christian identity, there were pogroms and, finally, the expulsion of the country's Jewish population in 1492. 'It shows us that there was a good coexistence between all the different social groups or faith groups that were there at that time,' said Ceprián. 'But later, from the time when the Christian church begins to grow stronger in the Roman government, you start to get powerful groups opposed to those who are weaker in society. Oddly, that's something that's happening now, too.'
