Naslov
The Jewish community in Salona

Autori
Matijević, Ivan

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Izvornik
"Jews in the Balkans: History, Religion, Culture". / - Split, 2017, 21-21

Skup
International Conference "Jews in the Balkans: History, Religion, Culture".

Mjesto i datum
Split, Hrvatska, 08.05.2017. - 10.05.2017

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
Jews, Dalmatia, Salona, community, menorah, sarcophagus
(Židovi, Dalmacija, Salona, zajednica, menora, sarkofag)

Sažetak
The sarcophagus of Flavius Theodotus was found in an early Christian cemetery basilica in Manastirine in Salona, the capital of the ancient Roman province of Dalmatia. In 382 C.E. he buried his son in lege sancta cristiana – the cemetery of the Christian faith. Giovanni Battista de Rossi has correctly assumed that this expression was created according to the syntagma in lege iudaica, which means that the Jewish cemetery, and therefore the Jewish community, had existed in Salona. Don Frane Bulić, the greatest Salona researcher, reinforced this theory with three archaeological findings: a lamp with a menorah motive, one yellowish glass gemma also depicting a menorah and a vessel for oil (keren apuh) used for anointing the newly elected king. The fragment of sarcophagus decorated with a menorah was found on Our Lady’s Island, precisely within the city’s southeastern necropolis where Bulić had assumed the existence of a smaller Jewish cemetery. These three artifacts date from the 3rd or 4th century C.E. However, the crucial evidence for the existence of the Jewish community was one fragmented grave inscription found in 1954. It mentions Jews as a religious group in the same line after the Romans and before the Christians (Romani, Iudei et Cristiani). That kind of order reflects the official religious policy of the Roman Empire during the 3rd century. According to some other elements, this inscription can be dated to the end of 3rd or beginning of the 4th century. Salona, as the one of the biggest urban centers on the eastern coast of Adriatic with more than 40 thousand inhabitants, then had numerous pagan cults like that of Jupiter, Venus, Victoria, Hercules, Silvanus, Ceres, Liber, Magna Mater, Mithras, the Egyptian gods Isis and Serapis, and cults of deified emperors. The Jewish community lived with them as well as with the Christians who were hit hard by Diocletian’s persecutions during 304 C.E. and afterwards transformed the city in one of the most prominent Christian centers of the Roman world. Jews continued to live in Salona into the late antiquity, which can be seen by the epitaph of the Samaritan woman Nomia (?) erected in August, 539 C.E.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Povijest, Povijest umjetnosti, Arheologija

POVEZANOST RADA