Jewish catacombs at Rome’s Villa TorloniaThe authorities seem to be aiming to begin the restoration of the catacombs in the coming year, with the aim of opening them to the public in due course.
By IRVING SPITZ
07/18/2010 03:41
A fascinating burial site may soon be opened to the general public.
ROME – Cremation represented one of the usual burial practices for pagan Romans. With the emergence of Christianity, burials began to take place in catacombs. This word is derived from the Greek meaning “within the quarries.” Catacombs are underground cemeteries consisting of intricate labyrinths or tunnels with recesses for burial chambers.
There are more than 60 sites of catacombs in Rome which date from the end of the second to the early fifth century CE.
The vast majority of catacombs represent the final resting places of Christians, but there are also several of Jewish origin. One of these is situated in the gardens of the Villa Torlonia in the northeast of Rome. This villa was built in the first half of the 19th century for the wealthy banking Torlonia family. In 1929 it was taken over by the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. After his death in 1945, the villa and the gardens remained unused for many years, but have now been restored and are open to the public.
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THE MAIN interest in these catacombs is the plethora of beautiful colored frescos on the walls and part of the vaulted ceilings. These represent characteristic iconographic Jewish symbols and many are in an excellent state of preservation. These include the seven-branched menora, shofar, ark with the law tablets, etrog, lulav, circumcision knife, cruse of oil and matzot. There are also depictions which may possibly represent the façade of the Temple destroyed in 70 CE by Titus.
Additional frescoes include geometric patterns, grapevines, birds, plants and fish. These are not specific to Jewish catacombs and are also seen in those of Christian origin. Not unexpectedly, there are no depictions of humans consistent with the Ten Commandments which prohibited displays of graven images. There are also stamped tiles with the name of the ancient Roman workshop.
Interestingly enough, the inscriptions found in these and other Jewish catacombs are in Greek and not Hebrew.
Radiocarbon testing using organic material incorporated during the construction of the catacombs was conducted by Prof. Leonard V. Rutgers. This revealed that these catacombs date from about 100 BCE (Rutgers et al., Nature, 2005). According to Rutgers, these specific catacombs came into general use in the first century and predate Christian catacombs by at least 100 years. This implies that burial of the dead in catacombs may have begun as a Jewish custom and that it was subsequently adopted by the Christians.
On the other hand, it should be noted that other archeological findings such as oil lamps found in the catacombs of Villa Torlonia date from the end of the second to the early fifth century CE. Thus the question of the precise dating of these catacombs is not definitely resolved. ...
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