The appearance of Jewish art, architecture, and inscriptions increased enormously in the course of antiquity. This chapter describes the most significant remains of Jewish art and architecture from late antiquity. The evidence finds expression primarily in two public frameworks, namely cemeteries and synagogues. Although funerary remains have been found at a number of sites in late Roman and Byzantine Palestine, the most significant and best-preserved are from the necropolis of Bet Shearim. For the first time in the Land of Israel, many depictions of Jewish symbols, particularly the menorah and less frequently the Torah ark are found. Hundreds of inscriptions were found in Jewish catacombs, almost 80 percent in Greek and the remainder in Hebrew with a smattering of Aramaic and Palmyrene. The post-70 development of the synagogue, a Jewish institution par excellence, provided opportunities for creating unique Jewish architectural models. The material culture presents a clear idea of the location and parameters of Jewish settlement at late Roman period.

The plethora of literary and geographical references to pre-70 CE synagogues, worship, Torah-reading, administrators, and functionaries, despite the dearth of archaeological remains in Eretz Israel, reveals the centrality of the institution of the synagogue to Jewish life before and after 70 CE. Extensive remains of domestic space from pre-70 Jerusalem fit effectively with patterns of Jewish housing found in Galilee later. The evidence of Jewish art and architecture from the latter part of the Early Roman Period, approximately 70-135 CE, through the Middle Roman Period supports the most obvious conclusion that the process of hellenization continued its steady advance on the material culture of ancient Palestine. The example of Jewish tombs and burials seems to reflect a slightly more acquisitive attitude toward borrowing from Graeco-Roman culture, especially in the design of tombs, sarcophagi, and ossuaries. The Bar Kochba era represents the last period of explicit Jewish art on the coins of ancient Palestine.