The synagogue was discovered by archaeologists Theodor Wiegand and Hans Schrader in the western residential area in 1895–98.

The synagogue dates from the 2nd century CE and was built into an older Hellenistic house.

It consists of a main hall with two rows of columns forming a small basilica.

[2] In 1928, archaeologist Eleazar Sukenik identified the building as a synagogue, pointing to a niche for the Torah Ark.

[citation needed] In the summer of 2009 archeologists Nadin Burkhardt from the University of Frankfurt am Main and Mark Wilson of the Asia Minor Research Center in İzmir began an exploration of the synagogue in a dig sponsored by the Biblical Archaeology Society.