Patrons and viewers of mosaic pavements in religious buildings in Jordan and Palestine

The article focuses on religious imagery in the Christian and Jewish communities, and it addresses the iconography of the mosaic pavements in churches and synagogues of modern Israel, the Palestine National Authority areas, and Jordan respectively. The art of mosaics and the artists working for Christians and Jews relied on a common pictorial tradition but the meaning of the messages conveyed changed according to the contexts in which they appeared. There was a direct interaction between the structure and the iconography, and together they formed a sacred environment which was essential for maintaining the religious identity of the local Jewish and Christian communities. Whereas the dedicatory inscriptions of the mosaic pavements of the churches were often accompanied by portraits of the donors/patrons, this is not the case in the synagogues. Furthermore the inscriptions in the synagogues reveal that it is generally the community as a whole that is commemorated contrary to the focus on the individual donor or patron in the churches. The iconography of the mosaics in the two types of buildings is also diverse. Whereas several of the pavements of the churches have architectural representations, the mosaics of the synagogues usually show biblical scenes like the Torah shrine or the Temple in Jerusalem flanked by the menorath and other ritual objects.