ANCIENT JEWISH CEMETERIES. – The typical Jewish tomb in Palestine is one excavated in the rock, with a burial chamber whose entrance was closed by a large fitted stone, like that of Joseph of Arimathea, in which the Redeemer was laid.
In Egypt, at Alexandria, two entire districts out of five were so densely populated by Jews that they were called Jewish quarters (Philo, In Flaccum, 8, 55). Yet how many Jewish cemeteries have been found above ground?
At Bologna, the bodies of the martyrs Vitale and Agricola were buried in a Jewish cemetery, but to this day no Jewish funerary inscription discovered in Bologna is known.
The Jewish community of Rome, according both 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, to that 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 firmly established around the middle of the second century B.C.; but thus far no funerary inscription is known not only from that period, but even from the subsequent republican or Augustan age.
By the first half of the third century the Jewish communities of Rome had at least thirteen synagogues; the districts in which they were most heavily concentrated were Trastevere and the Suburra.
What were their cemeteries, or Jewish cemeteries, since the wish ἐν εἰρήνῃ ἡ καύησας σου οὖνων σωτῶν ὁ αὐτῆς? occurs continually in their funerary epigraphy? Perhaps in Rome the Jews did not initially have burials separate from those of the pagans; Civitavecchia (v.), for example, a Jewish tomb was found in the midst of the Roman cemetery.
The first time an underground Jewish cemetery was discovered in Rome was in 1602, through the work of A. Bosio on the Via Portuensis at Monteverde, in the locality then called Colle Rosaro; but even at that time it was damaged. It was brought to light again in 1905 in much worse condition 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 poor 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 reexamined (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 were collected (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 fourth century, as attested by some tile stamps and some terracotta lamps bearing the monogram.
The second Jewish cemetery discovered was the one in the Randanini vineyard on the Via Appia, illustrated by R. Garrucci (C. degli antichi Ebrei scoperto recentemente in vigna Randanini, Rome 1862); incorporated into it are two pagan cubicles that do not date from later than the third century A.D.; part of the cemetery, toward the present Via Appia Pignatelli, extends in the open air, and there Garrucci and others believed that they could recognize in the ruins the remains of a synagogue. The inscriptions in Frey’s aforementioned Corpus run from no. 81 to no. 276.
A third, small and likewise badly damaged underground cemetery 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 Frey’s Corpus are nos. 73–77).
In 1886 N. Müller published 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 Cimarra vineyard on the Ardeatina (J. B. Frey, op. cit., nos. 277–81).
In November 1919, a new underground Jewish cemetery was accidentally discovered in the Villa Torlonia on the Via Nomentana. It consists of two parts that were originally independent of each other. The older, at a higher level, dates from the third century; the other lies at a lower elevation. In the former, a cubicle has its vault and walls decorated with the seven-branched candlestick, the ethrégh, the lālabh, the šōphār, the scroll of the Law, the drōn, the circumcision knife, the oil vessel, the mandrake, dolphins with tridents, lions, peacocks, birds, the sun, the moon, and landscapes. A swastika is depicted above one tomb. 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), followed by H. W. Beyer and H. Lietzmann, Die jüdische Katahombe der Villa Torlonia in Rom, Berlin–Leipzig 1930; the inscriptions are recorded by Frey, op. cit., nos. 6–71.
Altogether, approximately 500 inscriptions were found in these cemeteries; most are in Greek, the others in Latin, and very few are in Hebrew. The marble slabs are generally smaller, originally occupying the center of the loculus, which was instead usually closed with masonry. The seven-branched candlestick was also painted on a wall of the cemetery on the Via Portuensis. F. Rieger holds that the seven-branched candlestick and the symbolic objects of the Feast of Tabernacles (the vessel, the horn, etc.) all have an eschatological significance (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 discovered 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 funerary inscriptions is provided by Taranto (J. B. Frey, op. cit., nos. 620–31).
In the other cities, one can speak of funerary inscriptions rather than of actual cemeteries; it will suffice to mention those where they are most numerous: Naples and Pompeii appear in Frey’s Corpus with 6 inscriptions; Syracuse with 3, as does 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, a Jewish necropolis was discovered at Carthage by Delattre (Gamart ou la nécropole juive de Carthage, Lyon 1895); at Setif, an inscription recalls a pater synagogae (CIL, VIII, 8499); in Pontus, at Amisos (cf. W. Schultze, Altchristliche Städte und Landschaften, II, Kleinasien, Gütersloh 1922, p. 163).