Mitteilungen zur Christlichen Archäologie, Band 23 (2017)

The systematic studies of cities and territories in Southeastern Sicily started many years ago. Beyond the archaeological surveys, the late antique funerary settlements of Syracuse proposed multiple research cues and paths, as the historical-religious, economic and social nature. The cemeteries distribution (both of private and community law) and topography of funerary monuments in the suburban area, between the 3rd and 5th centuries, reflect well a diversified situation within a few hundred meters radius. To understand that, one needs to take account of the relationship between paganism and Christianity, orthodoxy and heterodoxy (most of all for the 5th century), which is not only a Sicilian problem, even if it is strongly sensed in the island. Our aim is to trace the out-lines for an initial study of how the suburb of Akradina in Syracuse was transformed over time. Over a long period that goes from the classical period to the Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages the area underwent interesting and important changes. Over centuries the area underwent changes that modified the original destination. At the beginning of the VI it seems that dhe burial sites was out of use: the last burial of Goti at S. Giovanni belongs to this period. His catacom is of particular interest because it is the only one that has not undergone modifications that would have changed its original form. In the nearby crypt of S. Marciano and the two cemeteries of Vigna Cassia and S. Lucia the areas that were reserved for important burial were transformed into places for religious ceremonies and devotion, for a very long period. A particular focus is dedicated to the city of Catania. Several interest has been given to structural aspect of the catacombs of Sicily: practice of funeral rituals, ethnic and cultural fruition’s characters, transformation in the use, transformation in the way of using spaces for graves, to complete a general point of view about the phenomena of continuity and innovation as to previous sepulchral arrangements and, in the analysed periods, the facies belonging to the different settling, variegated in the committees’ ideological and religious themes, in choosing monumental types (like the rotundae) and decorations, in self-representative aspects, in burial uses.

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Archaeological materials played an important role for the studies of the history of Christianity in the South-Western Crimea. Especially interesting are individual artefacts of Christian cult, pectoral crosses in particular. Only women and girls wore these crosses in necklaces from 550-650 A.D. with crosses with flared ends. It was the earliest and the most popular type of crosses among the Crimean Goths. The location of beads and crosses documented in situ in graves provides arguments to reconstruct necklaces and costume which components they formed. Many necklaces contained several crosses, which could be explained as the understanding of cross as amulet. Crimean finds enlarge our notion of everyday Christian culture in the early mediaeval period, thus forming a striking evidence of close economic and cultural relations of the Crimea and the Byzantine Empire in the early Middle Ages.

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In diesem Beitrag wird ein neu entdecktes Goldglas aus der jüdischen Katakombe unter der Villa Torlonia in Rom präsentiert. Das Goldglas zeichnet sich dadurch aus, dass es nicht nur eines der ersten Goldgläser ist, die in situ in einer jüdischen Katakombe gefunden wurde. Auch die Ikonografie, an der nichts Jüdisches zu erkennen ist, kann direkt aus der ikonografischen Tradition der griechisch-römischen und auch christlichen Kunstpraxis verstanden werden. Nach einer Beschreibung des genauen Fundkontextes wird die Ikonografie des Stückes überlegt. Es werden Bemerkungen über eine mögliche Werkstattgleichheit und die Chronologie aufgrund der Radiokarbondatierung eines Grabes in direkter Nähe genau fixiert. Dies führt zu einem Resultat, das Bedeutung für die Datierung der spätantiken Goldgläser im Allgemeinen haben könnte. Eine Diskussion zur Funktion sowie Ausführungen zur Bedeutung des angeführten Goldglases beschließen den Artikel. Es wäre eventuell noch die Frage zu klären, ob man nicht innerhalb der jüdischen Archäologie überlegen sollte, der Möglichkeit von nicht jüdischem ikonografischem Material in genügendem Maße Rechenschaft zu tragen.

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