Spanish synagogue archaeological search continues

One year after archaeological work began to find the remains of Spain’s second largest synagogue, researchers and excavators have said they are still not sure if  it is there.

The search is focused on a 14th century building in the small city of Utrera in Seville, in the south-west of the country, but clues as to its past are proving hard  to come by.

“We still have no idea if the synagogue is there or not and what state it is in,” said Miguel Ángel de Dios, one of the archaeologists working on the Utrera project, speaking to JTA.

“If we find it, we believe a mikveh, or ritual bath, should be located outside the prayer room, as well as some sort of building for the women’s gallery.

“It may not have been preserved, but we can certainly seek for traces of some kind of distinction between men and women.”

Professor Jorge Eiroa, an historian at the University of Murcia, said: “When a synagogue is converted into a church, any Jewish vestiges are promptly removed. If we’re lucky, the Torah ark is transformed into a small altar, as in the case of  Córdoba.”

Over the years, the building – which sits in the heart of the city’s Jewish quarter – has served as a hospital, a Catholic chapel, an orphanage, a school and, more recently, as a restaurant and cocktail bar.

After a period of abandonment, the city council bought it in 2018 and began the dig in February 2021, after historians pointed to a city priest’s 1604 reference to the site having been a synagogue.