Synagogue in the Agora of Athens, Ancient synagogue ruins in Ancient Agora of Athens, Greece

The Synagogue in the Agora of Athens is a putative synagogue identified in the northern rooms of the Hellenistic Metroon, on the west side of the Ancient Agora. The northernmost room took a basilical form with an apse lined with marble benches at its western end, and the room adjoining it to the south had a mosaic floor with geometric and ivy patterns, now only partly preserved. A marble fragment with a seven-branched menorah and a lulav was found a few metres from the building.

The Hellenistic Metroon, built on the west side of the Agora in the mid-second century BCE, was damaged in the Heruli sack of 267 CE and only partly rebuilt. Homer Thompson proposed in the 1970s that its two northern rooms were then converted for Jewish worship, the northernmost with a basilical plan and marble benches in an apse. Coins beneath the mosaic floor of the adjoining room date the final remodeling to the early fifth century.

The marble remnants here carry symbols of Jewish faith, showing how Jewish people practiced their religion in the ancient city. These objects connect visitors to religious customs that were part of daily life back then.

Access to this location is through the main entrance of the Agora archaeological site, where information about pathways and guides is available. The remains lie at an easy-to-reach spot within the excavation grounds, though they are modest and require some attention to notice.

The menorah-and-lulav fragment was found in 1933 a few metres northeast of the Metroon, not in the 1977 excavation, and it came from a fourth- to fifth-century context. Homer Thompson linked it to the remodeled northern rooms only in the 1970s, comparing their plan to the third-century synagogue at Sardis. Whether Paul's Athenian synagogue was this building remains unproven; William A. McDonald argued in 1941 that it probably lay outside the Agora.