This exhibition is no longer on view in Robert E. Blum Gallery, 1st FloorIntroduction
This exhibition presents a mosaic floor from the first ancient synagogue to be discovered in the Mediterranean basin. The remains of the synagogue at Hammam Lif, Tunisia, were uncovered by the French army captain Ernest de Prudhomme in 1883, while preparing a garden for planting. Since his fortuitous discovery, archaeologists have identified nearly three hundred other synagogues, dating to between 300 and 600 c.e. (Common Era), in the Mediterranean region.
The principal mosaics from Hammam Lif (called Naro in ancient times) were added to the synagogue’s sanctuary about 500 c.e., the gift of a woman named Julia Nap., as indicated by an inscription within the floor. The main subjects depicted are scenes related to the biblical Creation and to the idea of Paradise. Additional mosaic panels, also collected by Captain Prudhomme, came from other rooms in the synagogue or from nearby buildings. These other panels were made earlier, in the first or second century c.e., and feature animals, a male figure, and a female figure.
The Brooklyn Museum acquired the Hammam Lif mosaics as a group in 1905. The hundredth anniversary of their arrival in Brooklyn offers an excellent opportunity to reevaluate the development of Jewish art in the late Roman world. These notable examples of ancient Jewish art are therefore presented within the context of other artworks in the Museum’s collection from the late Roman Empire. In presenting these materials, Tree of Paradise raises such intriguing issues as the role of female patronage in the ancient synagogue; the complex inter-relations among Roman, Christian, and Jewish symbolism in Late Antiquity; and the relationship between ancient and modern understanding of the synagogue as an institution.
The accidental discovery of the Hammam Lif synagogue helped to broaden the historical account of Late Antiquity. It opened up a valuable source of knowledge that continues to enrich our understanding today.
Edward Bleiberg
Associate Curator
Department of Egyptian, Classical, and Ancient Middle Eastern Art
Making Mosaics
Mosaics provided durable and colorful decoration for floors, walls, and ceilings in ancient buildings. They were made from colored stones cut into small cubes, called tesserae (pronounced TES-ser-ree), that were set into mortar.
The mosaics on view here once covered floors. Typically, workers put down three preparatory layers before making the mosaic itself. An initial layer of fine rubble (statumen) was covered by a second layer made of compacted mortar (rudus). The third and final preparatory layer contained crushed terracotta (nucleus). A setting bed of fine mortar, applied to one small section at time, received the tesserae. Archaeological evidence suggests that craftsmen prepared the tesserae on the spot at construction sites. Itinerant mosaic-makers offered clients their choice of motifs from pattern books. Figures of humans and animals, such as those seen in these mosaics, were the most expensive choices, while geometric patterns were cheaper.
Mosaic-makers drew guidelines for laying the tesserae in the mortar based on the pattern, setting the tesserae with the aid of a straight wooden rule and a plumb bob to keep the floor level. Finally, they rubbed the set tesserae smooth to avoid protruding irregularities that might lead to damage.
Creation
Three mosaic panels remain of the original Creation vignette, including a large fish (perhaps a tuna), a dolphin, and a duck. Corporal Peco’s watercolor shows that the three biblical categories of animals—creatures of the sea, air, and land—were represented in the mosaic. The allegorical meaning of the scene, suggesting the recreation of the world in the Messianic Age, is implied through the vines protruding from the mouths of the fish and the dolphin, which suggest that the creatures are being caught. That is, the fish could be associated with Leviathan, a biblical sea monster reconceived by Rabbinic tradition as a kosher fish that would be served to the faithful in the Messianic Age. In addition, classical tradition associates dolphins with the idea of divine help. Finally, ducks are associated with birth and rebirth in many Mediterranean cultures.
Captain Prudhomme\'s Mosaic Collection
Captain Ernest de Prudhomme’s mosaic collection included nine panels that did not appear in the watercolor he commissioned of the newly discovered sanctuary floor, published in 1884.
Two of these panels, depicting a fish and a rooster, are close in style to the sanctuary mosaics. Scholars have assigned these two to the synagogue’s entrance hall, or atrium.
The remaining seven panels were made at least two or three hundred years earlier than the sanctuary floor and might come from another room in the synagogue or a nearby building. Two of these remaining panels depict the human figure. Images of the figure have been found in situ in other ancient synagogues, and the figural subject does not on its own exclude these panels from consideration as belonging to the synagogue decorations. However, only the connection to Prudhomme argues that these mosaics did indeed come from the Naro synagogue he discovered.
Mosaic "Carpets"
The left and right sections of the floor mosaic resemble the patterns found in carpets of later periods and in contemporaneous textiles. The sections each consist of a vine growing from the bottom of the image and creating spaces that are filled with animals and, in the case of the larger carpet, two baskets.
The Greeks and Romans associated the vine with the god Dionysus. Jews and Christians adopted the vine as a motif but gave it a larger significance; here, the all-encompassing vine wraps itself around the other elements in the mosaic to represent the divine plan that controls and gives structure to the world. The birds and hare enclosed in the pattern are common fertility symbols, pointing to ideas of creation and re-creation in the Messianic Age, while the lion is, as so often, a symbol of divine power.
Other elements in the carpets relate to the Temple in Jerusalem destroyed centuries before. The basket of bread refers specifically to the ceremony of consecrating priests in the Temple. And the fruit basket may refer to the dedication of first fruits to God at the Temple. These elements, too, are contained by the vine.
Paradise
As indicated in the watercolor of the sanctuary floor, the mosaic-maker imagined a symmetrical Paradise consisting of a central fountain, two peacocks facing it, and two palm trees, with quails, at the sides. Each of these elements may be interpreted as playing a part in the re-creation of the world in Paradise. The flowing fountain resembles a cup decorated with a scallop shell pattern, a motif also used to decorate Torah shrines, ossuaries, and lamps in the Jewish tradition: the shell sanctifies whatever it touches. In addition, peacocks were common Roman and Christian symbols of rebirth. And quails, understood by the Greeks as a symbol of the passions, perhaps here refer back to Adam and Eve’s disobedience in the biblical Paradise.
The Naro Synagogue Sanctuary Floor
The arrangement of the Brooklyn Museum mosaic panels within the Naro synagogue sanctuary is known from Corporal Peco’s watercolor of the entire floor, published in 1884. Overall, the mosaics were oriented so that the viewer faced east, toward Jerusalem. The floor was divided into four distinct sections of pictorial decoration and in addition featured the patron’s inscription.
On the viewer’s left is a design of vines, forming areas filled with images of birds, two baskets, and a hare. In the upper center is a depiction of the Creation, featuring fish, ducks, and a wheel, while the lower center depicts Paradise, with a fountain, two palm trees, and birds. On the viewer’s right is a smaller area of vine pattern with areas for a lion and a bird.
The inscription, at center, between two menorahs, states that Julia Nap. paid for the floor from her own funds “for her salvation.” The reference to a future salvation may suggest that Julia looked toward the Messianic Age and that the mosaic scenes she donated referred not only to the Genesis descriptions of the Creation and Paradise, but also to the re-creation of the world with the anticipated coming of the Messiah.
The individual elements in the complex design can be associated with a widespread vocabulary of Roman, Christian, and Jewish fertility symbols. The floor also features specifically Jewish symbols, such as the menorahs and baskets. Though not every detail can be explained today, it seems clear that the floor design conveyed an array of symbolic meanings to its original audience.
The floor expresses theological ideas and might have been used to illustrate lessons about the world to come taught in the synagogue. Contemporaneous church mosaics were used in just this manner.
The Ancient Synagogue
A first-century c.e. inscription from Jerusalem summarizes the functions of ancient synagogues: a place to read the Torah, to give instruction in the commandments, and to provide hotel accommodations for guests from abroad. To these might be added its function as a place of prayer and for the celebration of holidays.
Reading the Law (or Torah) in the synagogue is one of the firmest links with modern Jewish practice. By the first century c.e., officials read the Torah in a fixed cycle and also read from the prophets. Rules were set for translating from Hebrew into the daily spoken language of the congregation. In Naro, this language was Latin.
It is impossible to know whether the mosaics on the sanctuary floor were used for instruction. Certainly, they illustrate contemporaneous concerns about the destruction of Jerusalem and hopes for the coming of the Messiah that are found in prayers of the same period.
No evidence survives for Jewish prayers used in Roman North Africa in the period from about 200 to 700 c.e., when the Naro synagogue flourished. Evidence from Egypt suggests that prayers could have included the Shema and the Eighteen Blessings, still included in the service. The standard Orthodox prayer book used today derives from an eighth-century c.e. text written in Babylonia by Rabbi Amram.
Rosh Hashanah (New Year) and Sukkot were observed in the Diaspora synagogues by Late Antiquity. Passover was celebrated on 14 Nissan, its date in the Aramaic (Jewish) calendar. As late as 380 c.e., the church father John Chrysostom complained that Christians were trying to celebrate Easter on the same date of 14 Nissan. Numerous Roman laws that attempted to separate Christians and Jews suggest that many early Christians wanted to preserve a link to Judaism by attending synagogue.
Roman Textile Designs
A growing vine forming symmetrical spaces filled with symbolic animals was a common Roman design device. It is repeated on the Naro synagogue’s sanctuary floor and on these textiles. Birds and rabbits, common fertility symbols, were enclosed in the vine originally associated with the wine god Dionysus. In Christian and Jewish symbolism, the embracing vine stood for God’s divine plan, constraining and guiding natural forces.
Though these textiles are often called “Coptic,” a word referring to the Christian minority in Egypt, where the textiles were found, they represent Late Roman clothing in all parts of the Empire. That clothing included tunics decorated with wool bands and medallions such as these. These examples attest to the widespread popularity of the symbols found on the Naro synagogue sanctuary floor.
The Peoples of Tunisia
Ancient Tunisia included many ethnic groups. The indigenous Berbers were perhaps the people known in ancient times as the Afri. When the Romans named this province Africa, later the European name for the entire continent, they did so because it was the land of the Afri.
The ancient Phoenicians, from the coast of present-day Lebanon, arrived in Tunisia by the ninth century b.c.e. and founded Carthage in 815 b.c.e., which grew to become the largest and most important city in the region. They spoke a Semitic language. By the third century b.c.e., their empire was in direct competition with the expanding empire of the Romans. After several wars, Rome finally conquered Carthage in 146 b.c.e.
Jews traditionally trace their arrival in Tunisia to the period of Phoenician domination, but certainly had arrived by the first century b.c.e., in Roman times. Many Latin-speaking Italians also settled in Tunisia during Roman rule. North Africa’s participation in Roman culture is still evident in its many important Roman archaeological sites.
During Late Antiquity, Roman North Africa was ruled successively by several different groups, and its mixture of peoples became even more complex. Between 429 and 439 c.e., the Vandals, a Christianized Germanic tribe, conquered Tunisia. In 533 c.e. Byzantine Christian Romans reconquered the area. Between 648 and 669 c.e., Arabs conquered Tunisia, bringing Islam with them.
In modern times, the Turks took charge of the area in 1574. The capital city of Tunis was then under the rule of a hereditary governor, called the bey, who established practical independence from the Turkish sultan under the Tunisian Muradid dynasty (1628–1705) and the following Husainid dynasty (1705–1957). The French occupied Tunisia from 1881 until full independence in 1956. The present Republic of Tunisia abolished the monarchy in 1957.
With its interplay of different ethnic groups over the centuries, Tunisian culture is woven from many historical strands.
This exhibition is no longer on view in Robert E. Blum Gallery, 1st Floor