Objects of Antiquity
The Paradesi Synagogue has the Scrolls of the Law, several gold crowns received as gifts, many Belgian glass chandeliers, and a brass-railed pulpit. It houses the copper plates of privileges given to Joseph Rabban, the earliest known Cochin Jew, dating from the 10th century, written in Tamil on the two plates, by the ruler of the Malabar Coast. The floor of the synagogue is composed of hundreds of Chinese, 18th century, hand-painted porcelain tiles, all of which are unique. There is also an oriental rug, a gift from Haile Selassie, the last Ethiopian Emperor. The most visible part of the synagogue is the 18th century clock tower, which, along with other parts of the complex,which underwent repair work under the direction of World Monuments Fund, between 1998 and 1999.
A tablet from the earlier synagogue in Kochangadi in Kochi (built in 1344) is placed on the outer wall of the Paradesi synagogue. The inscription states that the structure was built in 5105 (in the Hebrew Calendar) as an abode for the spirit of God.
Read more about this topic: Paradesi Synagogue
Famous quotes containing the words objects of, objects and/or antiquity:
“Luckless is the country in which the symbols of procreation are the objects of shame, while the agents of destruction are honored! And yet you call that member your pudendum, or shameful part, as if there were anything more glorious than creating life, or anything more atrocious than taking it away.”
—Savinien Cyrano De Bergerac (1619–1655)
“Though collecting quotations could be considered as merely an ironic mimetism—victimless collecting, as it were ... in a world that is well on its way to becoming one vast quarry, the collector becomes someone engaged in a pious work of salvage. The course of modern history having already sapped the traditions and shattered the living wholes in which precious objects once found their place, the collector may now in good conscience go about excavating the choicer, more emblematic fragments.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“When we dream about those who are long since forgotten or dead, it is a sign that we have undergone a radical transformation and that the ground on which we live has been completely dug up: then the dead rise up, and our antiquity becomes modernity.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)