Strata

The Great Disappearing Act

Ein Gedi Synagogue Records Missing or Lost

Calling all cars! Calling all cars! Has anyone at Hebrew University in Jerusalem seen the records from the excavation of the ancient synagogue at Ein Gedi?

It was excavated almost 35 years ago by archaeologist Dan Barag, who never wrote a final report of his excavation (or even a preliminary report). The only published record of the dig is a popular article in Hebrew—in the Israeli journal Qadmoniot. Barag was recently considering applying for a Shelby White-Leon Levy grant to finance the research required to finally publish the scientific results of the excavation. When he tried to locate the records at Hebrew University, where he teaches, however, they were nowhere to be found.

Ein Gedi is a lovely site on the western shore of Dead Sea. The results of the excavation of the synagogue proved extraordinarily rich: a clearly preserved outline of two buildings on top of one another, one with two phases; a Torah shrine; a hoard of coins from the Byzantine period; a bronze menorah; a water basin for congregants to wash their hands and feet (the only such installation ever found in a synagogue); and a charred wooden disk from the bottom or top of a pole around which a Torah was once rolled.