Archaeologists in the Andaluc city of Utrera have discovered a staggeringly rare Spanish medieval synagogue that was later used as everything from a hospital and a home for abandoned children to a restaurant and disco-pub over the course of seven centuries.
The find, announced on Tuesday, makes the 14th century building one of a precious handful of medieval synagogues to have survived the expulsion of Spain's Jews in 1492.
References to the lost temple go back more than 400 years. In his 1604 history of Utrera, Rodrigo Caro, a local priest, historian and poet, described an area of the city centre as it had been in earlier centuries, writing: In that place there were only foreign and Jewish people who had their synagogue where the Hospital de la Misericordia now stands. Caro's assertion was confirmed at the end of last year when a team led by archeologist Miguel ngel de Dios discovered the Torah ark and the prayer hall.
It was like cracking hieroglyphics. He said that when we had that key, everything came together.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday morning, Utrera s mayor Jos Mar a Villalobos said the two-year search had made us scientifically certain that we are standing in a medieval synagogue right now.
There were only four such buildings in all of Spain, two in Toledo, one in Segovia and one in C rdoba until now, he said. This is an exceptional building that has been part of Utrera and part of its inhabitants' lives for 700 years. This building was born in the 1300 s and has made it all the way to the 21st century. He added that it had always been in use for one purpose or another and was one of the reasons for its survival.
He said the discovery vindicated the decision of the city council to purchase the property for €460,000 410,000 four years ago, and that it represented an opportunity for us to recover our history and to attract researchers and tourists.
The plan is to open for public visits in parallel with the continuing archaeological works. Although the ritual bath and the women's area have yet to be discovered, the site could give up many more secrets, according to de Dios. The next phase of the investigation would be looking to see if there was a rabbinical house nearby and perhaps a religious school.
The significance of the find is more than the merely architectural, he said.
Apart from the heritage value, this is a building with an important history that was once a synagogue. The thing that makes me happiest is knowing that we can get back a very important part of not only Utrera's history, but also the history of the Iberian peninsula, he said. The story of the Sephardic Jews was practically erased or hidden for a long time. The story of the Jews who once called the peninsula home is far less familiar, because people know about Islamic Spain thanks to its myriad cultural, linguistic, gastronomic and architectural legacies.
In 2015, the Spanish government passed a law giving citizenship to the descendants of the Jews expelled in 1492 in an attempt to atone for what the then government called a historic mistake. There were more than 130,000 people who applied for citizenship under the scheme before it ended in 2019.
De Dios hopes that the discovery of the synagogue-cum-hospital-cum children s-home cum-bar will help Spaniards reflect on their past and present.
He said that this is like a window, or like a megaphone through which the Sephardic Jews can speak to us.
If we are so minded, we can learn a lot about who we are and why we are where we are. It's an opportunity to think about where the Sephardic diaspora is now. It is a unique opportunity and we shouldn't get too hung up on the building and its four walls.