3d Century Temple, Excavated, Yields Earliest Paintings

The earliest paintings known to man decorating a house of prayer excavated by Yale University and the French Academy in the ancient city of Dura, located on the Euphrates in Syria, will be put on view here tomorrow. The paintings, almost seventeen centuries old, representing some of the most famous and familiar stories of the Old Testament, were found on the walls of a buried synagogue.

One of the paintings depicts Moses standing in front of the burning bush, as described in Exodus, with the hand of God, thumb outstretched in the upper left-hand corner of the background.

Another view shows Moses holding in his hands the Tablets of the Law, and is the clearest of those made public. The reading of the tablets is described in the nineteenth and twentieth chapters of Exodus, Moses having gone up to the top of Mount Sinai, after God had “descended upon it in fire; and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.” Here the Ten Commandments were revealed to Moses, who went “down unto the people, and spake unto them.”

RETURN OF THE ARK DEPICTED

The earliest painting of the Temple at Jerusalem was found by the excavators. This shows the “Holy of Holies” of the Temple with the doors open; to the right is shown the High Priest Aaron in his priestly dress, and on both sides of the painting are attendants and sacrificial animals.

One of the most interesting of the pictures follows the Old Testament quite literally. The fourth chapter of the first Book of Samuel describes the battle between the Hebrews and the Philistines, in which four thousand Jews were killed. Faced with disaster, the elders of Israel decided, as a last resort, “to fetch the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of Shiloh unto us, that, when it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of ou# enemies.” The presence of the ark, however, failed to save the Hebrews, 30,000 of whom were killed by th# Philistines. “and the ark of Go# was taken.”

The Philistines found that taking ### the ark was serious business. They ### set it in the house of their idol, ### Dagon, and the next morning “be-# hold Dagon was fallen upon his face### to the earth before the ark of the ### Lord.” Dagon was restored to his##pedestal, and on the next morning, ### “behold, Dagon was fallen upon his ### face to the ground before the ark ### of the Lord.” with his head and ### hands cut off. “Only the stump of ### Dagon was left to him.”

PAINTINGS HISTORICALLY IMPORTANT

Further difficulties were {SPAN}visit#{/SPAN} upon the Philistines: “there was {SPAN}a###{/SPAN} deadly destruction throughout the {SPAN}###{/SPAN} city,” and the Philistines began to {SPAN}###{/SPAN} regret their capture. Their {SPAN}priests#{/SPAN} urged that the ark be returned to {SPAN}###{/SPAN} the Hebrews. The painting shows {SPAN}###{/SPAN} the ark being returned, drawn {SPAN}b###{/SPAN} “two milch kine,” upon a cart which {SPAN}###{/SPAN} contains “jewels of gold.” which {SPAN}###{/SPAN} were a “trespass offering.” In the {SPAN}###{/SPAN} upper right hand corner Dagon’s {SPAN}###{/SPAN} empty pedestal is depicted and {SPAN}###{/SPAN} the foreground are the pieces into {SPAN}###{/SPAN} which he was broken up upon falling from the pedestal.

According to Michael R. Rostovtzeff, Sterling Professor of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology at### Yale, the paintings are of great importance for the study of the Bible# and for the history of the early development of Christian art. They ### throw light upon the origin of the ### later illustrations of the Old Testament as found in illuminated ma###scripts and mosaics.

The year in which the synagog### was built, 244 A. D., has been ###mined by a painted inscript### the Aramaic on one of the ### the synagogue.