Does Smoke Mean Fire? Illumination, Incense, and the Senses in Late Antique Synagogues

Abstract

Synagogues remain among the best studied institutions of Late Antiquity. Associated scholarship commonly considers activities of prayer or scriptural recitation once conducted within synagogues and impacts of their architectural and visual programs on visitors. Yet, regardless of recent interest in embodied dimensions of ancient life, attention to Jews' sensory experiences inside these buildings remains rare. As inspired by Karaite critiques of Jewish practices of lighting lamps and incense in late ancient synagogues, this analysis addresses this lacuna by taking a distinctive approach. It reconsiders diverse artifacts discovered in excavations of synagogues and their surroundings in the Levant, North Africa, and Europe, including fragments of glass, stone, bronze, and ceramic lamps; preserved images in floor mosaics; and remains of bronze and ceramic censers. Read in tandem with rabbinic textual evidence from Roman Palestine, assessments of these texts and artifacts inspire considerations of how historical uses of lamps and incense burners implicate atmospheric elements of ancient synagogues, including experiential illumination and olfaction, which heretofore evaded notice. The ensuing discussion thus inspires new vantages on Jewish sensory and devotional landscapes in past time and challenges bifurcated notions of public versus private expressions of piety among Jews inside their synagogues, homes, and study halls.