Untitled

86
1986-7: 139, fig. 19). Another Shewbread Table
and menorah are crudely rendered on a lintel
from the Qasrin synagogue (Hachlili 1995: 184,
195 no. 5, fig. 5; Hachlili 2001: 42-3, Figs.II-2,
II-18b); it may be equated to the table incised
on the Second Temple period plastered wall in
Jerusalem.
Another variation of the tripod type is a gold,
round table with moulded legs, painted in front
of the menorah and the Tabernacle in panel
WB1 of the mid-3rd century Dura Europos
synagogue wall paintings. It recalls three-legged
stone tables discovered in Second Temple Jerusalem,
and a painted table on a Hellenistic tomb
at Marisa (Avigad 1983: 168-170, figs. 188, 189);
also a tripod table painted in the Callistus catacomb
(Finney 1994: 214, fig. 6.47). The tripod
table depicted on the Jerusalem coins of King
Herod, different from the rectangular form of
the Shewbread Table, might have represented
one of the Temple tables connected with the sacrifice
(Meshorer 1997: 63-64, pls. 44-45: coins
48-54).
The Sepphoris Shewbread Table is similar
to the one from Dura Europos in its round top
and three-legged character (similar also to some
early 10th-8th century BCE images: see Yarden
1991: figs. 95-97) and its form possibly derives
from early bronze tripod tables from Cyprus.
The Sepphoris table is unique in the covering
cloth and in that it appears alone in a panel,
in contrast to the Shewbread Tables of the
Second Temple period, as well as those on the
chapter four
Figure IV-20. Shewbread Tables: a. Sepphoris mosaic pavement; b. el-Hirbeh mosaic pavement; c. Dura Europos wall
painting panel WB1.
Dura Europos wall painting, the Qasrin relief,
and the Samaritan el-Hirbeh mosaic pavement,
which are rendered together with the menorah
(Hachlili 2001: 239,Figs. II-18b; VII-1). In these
cases the table and the menorah represent the two
most important Tabernacle and Temple holy vessels.
However, the depiction at Sepphoris of the
loaves of bread, the addition of the two censors,
and the close proximity of the Shewbread Table
to the biblical scene of the Consecration of the
Tabernacle indicate that it shows a Tabernacle
and Temple vessel. This is comparable to the
Shewbread Table painted on panel WB1 at Dura
Europos, which appears in the same biblical scene
of the Consecration of Aaron.
The table, grouped with the menorah, is
intended to represent the sanctity of the Temple.
But the Shewbread Table, unlike the menorah,
appears only in a few examples. It did not develop
into a symbol, nor did the table have any function
in the synagogue.
Talgam (2000: 104) suggests that a round shape
was chosen for the Shewbread Table in the central
panel of band 4 at the Sepphoris synagogue ‘to
distinguish it from the altar that stood on the bema
of the Christian church and that is also depicted
on wall-mosaics from the Byzantine period (such
as the mosaic of Abel and Melchizedek at san
Vitale, Ravenna)… For the same reason wine was
omitted from the components of the daily offering
at Sepphoris’, probably because of ‘the signif -
icance attributed to it as one of the components
of the Eucharist in the Christian Mass’.