ANCIENT JEWISH CEMETERIES. - The typical Jewish tomb in Palestine is one hewn out of the rock with a burial chamber whose entrance was closed by a large recessed stone, of the type of that of Joseph of Arimathea, in which the Redeemer was laid.
In Egypt, at Alexandria, two entire regions out of five were so populated by Jews as to be called Jewish quarters (Philo, In Flaccum, 8, 55). And yet how many ancient Jewish cemeteries have been found above ground?
At Bologna the bodies of the martyrs Vitalis and Agricola were deposited in a Jewish cemetery, but to this day no Jewish sepulchral inscription found in Bologna is known.
The Jewish community of Rome, both according to the judgment of Frey (Les communautés juives à Rome aux premiers temps de l'Église, in Recherches de science religieuse, 20 [1930], pp. 269-97), and more recently of S. Collon (Remarques sur les quartiers juifs de la Rome antique, in Mélanges d'archéol. et d'histoire, 57 [1940], pp. 72-94) was already solidly established toward the middle of the 2nd century B.C.; but so far no sepulchral inscription is known, not only from that era, but not even from the following Republican or Augustan age.
By the first half of the 3rd century the Jewish communities of Rome had at least thirteen synagogues; the regions most inhabited by them were Trastevere and the Suburra.
What were their burial places or cemeteries, since the wish ἐν εἰρήνῃ ἡ καύησας σου οὖνων σωτῶν ὁ αὐτῆς is continuous in their sepulchral epigraphy? Perhaps at Rome the Jews did not at first have burials separate from those of the pagans; at Civitavecchia (v.), for example, a Jewish tomb was found in the midst of the Roman burial ground.
The first time an underground Jewish cemetery was discovered at Rome was in the year 1602 through the work of A. Bosio on the via Portuense at Monteverde in the locality then called Colle Rosaro; but already at that time it was damaged. It was brought back to light in 1905 in much worse conditions and explored by N. Müller (Le catacombe degli antichi Ebrei poste nella via Portuense, in Dissertazioni della Pont. accad. rom. di Archeol., 2nd series, 12 [1915], pp. 205-318).
The cemetery was in such bad condition that the epigraphic material and the furnishings had to be removed and were donated by the owner to the Lateran Museum. The inscriptions were again re-examined (N. Müller, Die Inschriften der jüdischen Katahomben am Monteverde zu Rom; nach des Verfassers Tode vervollständigt und herausgegeben von Dr. N. A. Bees, Leipzig 1919). More recently they have been gathered together (nos. 290-493) by J. B. Frey in his Corpus inscriptionum Iudaicarum. Recueil des inscriptions juives qui vont du IIIᵉ siècle avant Jésus-Christ au VIIᵉ de notre ère, I, Europe, Vatican City 1936. Frey's datings, however, are far from acceptable (v. CIMITERI CRISTIANI and the observations of A. Ferrua in Civ. Catt., 1936, III, pp. 461-73; IV, pp. 127-37, 298-311). The cemetery was used until the 4th century, as attested by some dollar stamps and some clay lamps with the monogram.
The second Jewish cemetery found was that in the vigna Randanini on the via Appia, illustrated by R. Garrucci (C. degli antichi Ebrei scoperto recentemente in vigna Randanini, Rome 1862); incorporated with it are two pagan cubicula that do not go back beyond the 3rd century A.D.; a part of the cemetery toward the present via Appia Pignatelli runs in the open air, and there Garrucci and others believed they could recognize in the ruins the remains of a synagogue. The inscriptions in the aforementioned Corpus of Frey run from no. 81 to 276.
A third underground cemetery, not very extensive and also much damaged, was identified on the via Labicana by O. Marucchi (Di un nuovo c. giudaico scoperto sulla via Labicana, in Dissertazioni della Pont. accad. rom. di Archeol., 2nd series, 2 [1884], pp. 497-538). The inscriptions in the Corpus of Frey are at nos. 73-77).
In 1886 N. Müller illustrated Le catacombe degli Ebrei presso la via Appia Pignatelli (in Mitteilungen des deutschen archéol. Instituts, 1 [1886], pp. 49-56; J. B. Frey, op. cit., nos. 79, 80 and 283).
Other Jewish tombs were found in the ancient vigna Cimarra on the Ardeatina (J. B. Frey, op. cit., nos. 277-81).
In Nov. 1919 a new underground Jewish cemetery was found by chance in the villa Torlonia on the via Nomentana. It is composed of two parts originally independent of each other. The older one at a higher level is from the 3rd century; the other at a lower level. In the first, a cubiculum has its vault and walls decorated with the seven-branched candelabrum, the ethrégh, the lālabh, the šōphār, the scroll of the Law, the drōn, the circumcision knife, the oil vessel, the mandrake, dolphins with the trident, lions, peacocks, birds, the sun, the moon, landscapes. Above a tomb the swastika is represented. The first report of the discovery was given by R. Paribeni (Catacomba giudaica sulla via Nomentana, in Notizie degli scavi di antichità, 1920, pp. 143-155), then by H. W. Beyer and H. Lietzmann, Die jüdische Katahombe der Villa Torlonia in Rom, Berlin-Leipzig 1930; the inscriptions are reduced by Frey, op. cit., nos. 6-71.
Altogether about 500 are the inscriptions found in the said cemeteries; the majority in Greek, the others in Latin, very few the phrases in Hebrew. The marble slabs are generally smaller, occupying originally the center of the loculus which was closed rather with masonry. The seven-branched candelabrum was also found painted on a wall of the cemetery of the Portuense. F. Rieger holds that the seven-branched candelabrum and the symbolic objects of the feast of Tabernacles (vessel, horn, etc.) all have an eschatological meaning (Zu den Fresken in der jüdischen Katahombe der Villa Torlonia in Rom, in Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, 43 [1943], pp. 216-18).
Outside Rome an underground cemetery was found at Venosa (R. Garrucci, C. e. a Venosa, in Civ. Catt., 12th series, 1883, I, pp. 107-20; V. Castiglioni, Di alcune epigrafi del c. israelitico di Venosa, in Bull. della Comm. archeol. comunale, 37 [1909], pp. 82-96; J. B. Frey, op. cit., nos. 569-619). Another notable group of Jewish sepulchral inscriptions is offered by Taranto (J. B. Frey, op. cit., nos. 620-31).
In the other cities, rather than true cemeteries one can speak of sepulchral inscriptions; we limit ourselves to recalling where they are most numerous: Naples and Pompeii appear in the Corpus of Frey with 6 inscriptions; Syracuse with 3, like Elche in Spain; S. Antioco in Sardinia with 4; in the Cimmerian Bosporus Ponticapla with 9 and in Thessaly Larissa with 12; in Phocis Delphi with 3; in Attica Athens with 4; in the Archipelago Delos with 7. In Africa at Carthage a Jewish necropolis was discovered by Delattre (Gamart ou la nécropole juive de Carthage, Lyon 1895); at Setif an inscription commemorates a pater synagogae (CIL, VIII, 8499); in Pontus at Amisos (cf. W. Schultze, Altchristliche Städte und Landschaften, II, Kleinasien, Gütersloh 1922, p. 163).
Enrico Josi