Paper short abstract:

In many ancient Syrian sanctuaries, especially out of the 2nd and 3rd century AD, a special architectural type of rooms appears, often called banqueting rooms for ritual dining. But not all of them fulfilled the same function.

Paper long abstract:

Rooms of bi- and triclinia shape can be seen in a multitude of sanctuaries from Greece to Jordan, on Cyprus, in Iraq or in Turkey and in Syria. In the ancient Syrian city of Dura-Europos at the Euphrates, a number of Syrian and Phoenician sanctuaries were discovered among others like an early church, a synagogue and a Mithraeum. The sanctuaries of the Syrian and Phoenician deities are part of my dissertation, which is in progress. Comparing the partially well preserved and documented findings out of the sanctuaries of Dura-Europos with others along Near Eastern ancient trade routes, some similarities become apparent. Rooms lined up with benches of stone at the walls can be found in a variety of sanctuaries at different places. Usually, it is assumed that these rooms were reserved for the priests and served for ritual banquets, which followed the victims. The latter took place on the altar in the open courtyard of the sanctuaries. But in many cases, neither an altar, nor the function of the banqueting rooms can be verified. The paper will focus on the question, which purposes these special rooms inside the sanctuaries served, considering the needs of an ancient passenger or inhabitant of a city, where a number of sanctuaries was built like at Dura-Europos.