DIG SHOWS HARMONY AT SARDIS : PROJECT REVEALS JEWS, CHRISTIANS COEXISTED.

Byline: David Briggs Associated Press 

As we watch contemporary scenes of religious hatred in the Middle East, uncovering signs of religious harmony during periods of turmoil can be refreshing.

In Turkey, at the site of what was the ancient city of Sardis, archeological excavations have shown that Jews and Christians lived and worked side by side despite an official climate that encouraged anti-Semitism.

In a recent issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Professor John Crawford of the University of Delaware describes how the archeological record at Sardis indicates that Jews and Christians enjoyed a peaceful coexistence in which each respected the other's religious symbols.

``I thought that people would read the article and refuse to believe it with the state the world is in,'' Crawford said in an interview.

The literary record is replete with references to acts of anti-Semitism in the Byzantine period from 312 to 1453. One citation from the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium said that Jewish people faced discrimination from imperial policy and ecclesiastical polemic, and were portrayed in religious art as among the damned in the Last Judgment.

However, the archeological remains at Sardis, a major religious and commercial center that was destroyed by fire early in the 7th century, tells a different story in this one community, according to Crawford, who participated in the Harvard-Cornell excavations at Sardis in the 1960s and 1970s.

At Sardis, a grand-domed Basilica church and the world's largest excavated synagogue both occupied prominent locations.

And there is evidence that the synagogue underwent renovation until at least the middle of the 6th century, in apparent defiance of the law of Theodosius II, enacted in 438, banning the repair of synagogues, according to Crawford.

Another law, one forbidding people from exchanging New Year's gifts, also indicated that people seemed to get along in places such as Sardis.

``You don't make a law for something that people don't do,'' Crawford said.

The remains of a colonnade with 27 shops and homes showed that Jews and Christians worked alongside one another, said Crawford, the author of ``Byzantine Shops at Sardis,'' published by Harvard University Press.

While there was evidence of the destruction of a number of pagan symbols, Crawford said, there are no signs at Sardis of defacement of either crosses or menorahs.