IN HEBREW. RARE monograph on the ancient synagogue in the Roman ruins of Dura-Europos (today in western Syria) - a Hellenistic, Parthian and Roman border city built above the right bank of the Euphrates river. Unearthed in 1932 by the eminent an American archaeologist Clark Hopkins (1895-1976), the synagogue contained a forecourt and house of assembly with frescoed walls depicting people and animals, the earliest continuous surviving biblical narrative cycle, and a Torah shrine in the western wall facing Jerusalem. The author of this monograph - Eleazar Lipa Sukenik (1889-1953) was an Israeli archaeologist and professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, best known for helping establish the Department of Archaeology at Hebrew University and being one of the first academics recognizing the age and importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The author puts forward the then-radical theory that the Jews of antiquity boasted a well-developed canon of figurative art, whose iconography later formed the basis for Christian iconography. The book is accompanied by 31 photographic b&w plates of the beautiful frescoes, as well as 57 b&w illustrations of the works found in Dura-Europos and in other ancient synagogues. 235x165mm. XI+203 pages. Grey board Hardcover with red leather spine. Gilt front cover and spine. Cover age-stained, slightly dirty and slightly curved. Cover corners and bottom edge bumped and peeling. Cover upper and fore edges slightly bumped. Spine wrinkled. Spine edges peeling. Sticker residues on spine bottom edge. Ex-library copy with stamps. Library pocket pasted on front endpaper. Pre-title page upper edge slightly (10mm) torn - NO damage to text. Pages yellowing and age-stained. [SUMMARY]: Save for the aforementioned wear, this informative description of one of the rarest gems of ancient Jewish art is in good condition.