oa Touching and Inscribing the Dura-Europos Synagogue

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Elaborate murals identified in the assembly hall of the Dura-Europos synagogue dominate scholarship of the building, partly because no other decorated walls survive from other ancient synagogues. Disproportionate attention to the appearances of these paintings, however, has borne unintended consequences, reinscribing the primacy of the visual and the power of visuality for ancient visitors. This chapter takes a distinct approach. Using scholarship from the history of the senses and the history of experience to differently interpret the remnants of visitors’ tactile encounters with the synagogue, which include markings of graffiti and gouging they applied to its surfaces, it theorizes anew about relationships — not just between ancient visitors to the synagogue and the paintings they regarded — but also between those visitors and the vibrant tactility, physicality, and plasticity of the spaces that surrounded them.