Gerasa; Jerash Complete

Description

Gerasa, a major urban center noted for its dense array of religious monuments, contains numerous temples and churches. Among these remains is evidence for a synagogue: beneath the apse of the structure commonly referred to as the Synagogue Church, west of the Sanctuary of Artemis, architectural traces attributable to a synagogue were uncovered. A separate find was reported in 1893, when a tombstone bearing a Christian Palestinian Aramaic (CPA) inscription surfaced in the house of a Circassian resident of Gerasa. Although discovered in the city, the stone may not be native to it. The piece is now housed in St Anne’s Church, Jerusalem. Plan source: Dvorjetski 2005, 145, after Browning 1982, 83, map 3. Further reading: Applebaum, S.; Segal, A. 1993. “Gerasa,” in: Stern, Ephraim (ed.), The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, vol. 2, 470–479. Dvorjetski, E. 2005. “The Synagogue-Church at Gerasa in Jordan: A Contribution to the Study of Ancient Synagogues.” Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 121, 140–167. Hoyland, R. 2010. “Mount Nebo, Jabal Ramm, and the status of Christian Palestinian Aramaic and Old Arabic in Late Roman Palestine and Arabia,” in: M. C. A. Macdonald (ed.), The Development of Arabic as a Written Language, Oxford, 29–46. Milik, J. T. 1953. “Une inscription et une lettre en araméen christo-palestinien,” Revue Biblique 60, 527–528. Ronzevalle, S. 1908–1909. “Notes et études d’archéologie orientale,” in: Mélanges de la Faculté orientale. Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph, t. III, Beyrouth, 27*–31* avec dessin.