The Epitaph of Himerus from the Jewish Catacomb of the via Appia
For more than a century, the epitaph of Himerus has been lost to the world of scholarship. Along with many artifacts from the second-century catacomb of the Via Appia, the inscription was removed, and some details of its removal can now be documented. But Julia Alexandra's little monument to he...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Penn Press
1988
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| In: |
The Jewish quarterly review
Year: 1988, Volume: 79, Issue: 2/3, Pages: 93-100 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | For more than a century, the epitaph of Himerus has been lost to the world of scholarship. Along with many artifacts from the second-century catacomb of the Via Appia, the inscription was removed, and some details of its removal can now be documented. But Julia Alexandra's little monument to her husband has now been rediscovered and--for the first time in its recorded history--photographed. Particular interest attaches to the last word in the inscription, MOYNNA. The oddity of the spelling is so great that the acumen of the original transcriber, Raffaele Garucci, has been questioned. The clear evidence of the artifact, however, forecloses that expedient. The suggestion is here developed that MOYNNA is most plausibly taken as reflecting (א)מונה. The rediscovery of the epitaph, then, not only confirms what was known previously, but may require us to consider that the language of the Jews in Rome during the second century included some reminiscence of Aramaic. |
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| ISSN: | 1553-0604 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The Jewish quarterly review
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/1454248 |