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Gold Scroll
Discovered: Earliest Evidence Of Jewish Inhabitants In Austria
Archaeologists from the Institute of Prehistory and
Early History of the University of Vienna have found an amulet inscribed with a
Jewish prayer in a Roman child’s grave dating back to the 3rd century CE at a
burial ground in the Austrian town of Halbturn.
This amulet shows that people of Jewish faith lived in
what is today Austria since the Roman Empire. Up to now, the earliest evidence
of a Jewish presence within the borders of Austria has been letters from the
9th century CE. In the areas of the Roman province of Pannonia that are now
part of Hungary, Croatia and Serbia, gravestones and small finds attest to
Jewish inhabitants even in antiquity.
Jews have been settling in all parts of the ancient
world at the latest since the 3rd century BCE. Particularly following the
second Jewish Revolt against the Roman Empire, the victorious Romans sold large
numbers of Jews as slaves to all corners of the empire. This, coupled with
voluntary migration, is how Jews also might have come to present-day Austria.
The one or two year old child, which presumably wore
the silver amulet capsule around its neck, was buried in one of around 300
graves in a Roman cemetery which dates back to the 2nd to 5th century CE and is
situated next to a Roman estate ("villa rustica"). This estate was an
agricultural enterprise that provided food for the surrounding Roman towns
(Carnuntum, Györ, Sopron).
The gravesite, discovered in 1986 in the region of
Seewinkel, around 20 kilometres from Carnuntum, was completely excavated
between 1988 and 2002 by a team led by Falko Daim, who is now General Director
of the Roman-German Central Museum of Mainz, with the financial backing of the
Austrian Science Fund FWF and the Austrian state of Burgenland. All in all,
more than 10,000 individual finds were assessed, most notably pieces of glass,
shards of ceramic and metal finds. The gold amulet, whose inscription was
incomprehensible at first, was only discovered in 2006 by Nives Doneus from the
Institute for Prehistory and Early History of the University of Vienna.
The inscription on the amulet is a Jewish prayer is:
ΣΥΜΑ ΙΣΤΡΑΗΛ ΑΔΩNΕ ΕΛΩΗ ΑΔΩN Α
Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one.
Greek script, Hebrew language
Greek is common with amulet inscriptions, although
Latin and Hebrew and amulet inscriptions are known. In this case, the scribe's
hand is definitely familiar with Greek. However, the inscription is Greek in
appearance only, for the text itself is nothing other than a Greek
transcription of the common Jewish prayer from the Old Testament (Deuteronomy,
6:4): "Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one."
Amulet to protect against demons
Other non-Jewish amulets have been found in Carnuntum.
One gold- and three silver-plated amulets with magical texts were found in a
stone sarcophagus unearthed west of the camp of the Roman legion, including one
beseeching Artemis to intervene against the migraine demon, Antaura. Amulets
have also been found in Vindobona and the Hungarian part of Pannonia. What is
different about the Halbturn gold amulet is its Jewish inscription. It uses the
confession to the center of Jewish faith and not magic formulae.
The gold-plated artefact from Halbturn can be viewed
from 11 April 2008 onwards as part of the "The Amber Road – Evolution of a
Trade Route" exhibition in the Burgenland State Museum in Eisenstadt.
See also the University of Vienna article
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