SARDIS

A bride is getting ready in a hillside house, at the foothills of the Tmolos Mountains in Western Anatolia, in the capital of the Lydian empire, Sardis which is as well the city of the largest synagogue of the ancient world. As the maids put on gold fillets on the bride’s hair, gold earrings on her ears and a gold ring decorated with a lion on her finger, one of them sprays the myrtle-scented oil in the alabastro on her body.

While the bride and her entourage pass through the colonnaded street and enter the synagogue accompanied by hymns, the scent of jasmine and roses in the hands of her maids accompanies her. That unique blend rising from the bridal procession touches the fountain, marble table, mosaics in the synagogue and rises to the ceiling like a whisper. As if going to a wedding…