PALESTINE EXPLORATION — GRANT. 543 



material from Palestine has been very scarce. Thousands of objects 

 of every other meaning have been found, with only a few notable 

 written records so far, but we are likely to see an increase in favor 

 of written material from further exploration. 



Down at Ain Duk, near Jericho, a Turkish shell dug into the 

 ground and laid bare a portion of a mosaic floor. This has been 

 further excavated, and the building which contained it has been 

 shown to be an old sacred place, perhaps a synagogue. The inscrip- 

 tion is in Jewish-Aramaic. It is but nine or ten lines long and is thus 

 translated by S. A. Cook in the Palestine Exploration Fund Quar- 

 terly : 



Honoured be the memory of Benjamin the Manager, son of Josah. Honoured 

 be the memory of everyone who exerts himself and gave or shall give (?) in 

 this holy place, gold or silver, or any valuable ... in this Holy Place. 

 Amen. 



This appeal is the equivalent of a modern exhortation to give 

 generously to the collection. 



The excavation made by the French School of Archeology shows 

 the ground plan of a group of buildings clustering near the syna- 

 gogue. Further inscriptions, Jewish and votive in character, have 

 been revealed and many pictures in mosaic which formed the flooring 

 of the nave of the structure. Daniel is represented in the lion's den, 

 and there is a zodiac with appropriate figures and descriptive writ- 

 ing and a large mingled composition of patterns drawn from vege- 

 table, animal, and fantastic designs. (P. E. F. Quarterly, Oct., 1921, 

 pp. 185f and 189.) 



An inscription was found on the hill Ophel at Jerusalem just 

 before the war, but was not made public until after the war was 

 over. It probably dates from the first Christian century, in the days 

 of Gamaliel and Paul. It seems to refer to the restoration of a 

 synagogue and hostel for foreign Jewish pilgrims coming to Jeru- 

 salem. The Jewish freedman who did this belonged to a family 

 which had been benefactors of the holy place on the same site before. 

 His name was Theodotus and he is called the son of Vettenos, a priest 

 and head of the synagogue and son of one who held the same distinc- 

 tion before him ; indeed, Theodotus was the grandson of such a digni- 

 tary. Theodotus made building repairs and construction of the 

 synagogue for the purpose of the reading of the law and its teaching 

 and further provided rooms and plumbing arrangements for the 

 entertainment of foreign Jewish pilgrims. 



Dr. Nahum Slousch has found an ancient synagogue near Tiberias, 

 thought to be the Kenista d'Hammata mentioned in the Talmud. A 

 seven-branched candlestick made of marble, besides mosaics and 

 inscriptions, has been found at the site. 



