This generously illustrated volume, honoring Crawford H. Greenewalt, Jr., field director of the Sardis Expedition for over thirty years, and commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Harvard–Cornell archaeological excavation, presents new studies by scholars closely involved with Professor Greenewalt’s excavations at this site in western Turkey. The essays span the Archaic to the Late Antique periods, focusing primarily on Sardis itself but also touching on other archaeological sites in the eastern Mediterranean. Three papers publish for the first time an Archaic painted tomb near Sardis with lavish interior furnishings. Papers on Sardis in late antiquity focus on domestic wall paintings, spolia used in the late Roman Synagogue, and late fifth-century coin hoards. Other Sardis papers examine the layout of the city from the Lydian to the Roman periods, the transformation of Sardis from an imperial capital to a Hellenistic polis, the reuse of pottery in the Lydian period, and the history and achievements of the conservation program at the site. Studies of an Archaic seal from Gordion, queenly patronage of Hellenistic rotundas, and ancient and modern approaches to architectural ornament round out the volume.

The Synagogue at Sardis, discovered by the Harvard-Cornell expedition in 1962, is the largest synagogue known in the ancient world. Its great size, its location within a bath-gymnasium complex, its elaborate and expensive interior decorations, and the high status of many of the donors caused significant revision of previous assumptions about Judaism in the Roman Empire.

This long-awaited volume discusses in detail the history of the building, its decoration, and the place of the Jewish community in the larger society. Copiously illustrated with plans and photos, the book also includes catalogs of the decorative elements, coins, and other objects associated with this monumental religious space.