Susan Hopkins cleaning the synagogue wall paintings, 1932–33
Photography © 2011 Yale University Art Gallery
Aladen’s lamp had been rubbed and suddenly from the dry, brown bare desert had appeared paintings, not just one nor a panel nor a wall but a whole building of scene after scene, all drawn from the Old Testament in ways never dreamed before.
This is how Clark Hopkins dramatically described the discovery of the synagogue in November 1932. The paintings caused a sensation, and the synagogue remains the earliest and most elaborately decorated example of its type.