Tombstone of Sagira asked Shmuel

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The tombstone of Sagira bat Shmuel (Samuel) († August / September 1172) is in the Jewish cemetery " Heiliger Sand " in Worms . In the 19th century it and with it the cemetery as a whole were initially dated far too old.

Research history

Ludwig Lewysohn published the stone in 1855 with an inscription from 905 AD. The stone would have been the oldest in the cemetery. When this discovery was published, there was already a discrepancy between the printed version and what Lewysohn actually read: namely the year 900 AD. However, Lewysohn himself limited the fact that the writing was difficult to read. Rabbi Bamberger, who worked with Lewysohn, even believed that he was allowed to translate in AD 872. The tombstone of Sagira bat Shmuel was thus the oldest known Jewish tombstone north of the Alps. A typological - art-historical classification was not possible at that time. The horizontal lines that appear above every line of the oldest stones on the sacred sand do not exist (anymore) on the stone of Sagira bat Shmuel. The writing field is rather in the mirror of a recessed round arch.

Due to Lewysohn's determination, the tombstone was considered an outstanding monument of the cemetery and was included in a selection of stones that were restored at the time. This meant that the barely legible lettering was "renovated" in the sense of Lewysohn's reading. The stone could not be found in the following period. An initial criticism of Lewysohn's reading was therefore of a purely epigraphic nature. A scholar by the name of Rapoport stated that phrases in the text of the stone's inscription did not appear in early grave inscriptions, so that there must be an incorrect dating. It was not until 1904 that the stone was rediscovered when the tombstones were cataloged by Cantor Rosenthal and the teacher Rothschild in the cemetery. The exact investigation showed that despite the “renovation” of the stone, the numerical value to be read was not “900” but “1100”.

The tombstone bears the number 938 according to the inventory by Rosenthal and Rothschild, and number 115 according to the numbering of the Salomon Ludwig Steinheim Institute .

literature

in alphabetical order by authors / editors

  • Otto Böcher : The old Jewish cemetery in Worms = Rheinische Kunststätten 148th 7th edition. Neusser Verlag und Druckerei, Neuss 1992. ISBN 3-88094-711-2
  • Abraham Epstein: A grave stone found again in the Worms Jewish cemetery. In: Monthly for the history and science of Judaism 50 = NF 14 (March / April 1906), pp. 190–195.
  • Ludwig Lewysohn: Nafshot tsadiḳim: Sixty epitaphs of grave stones of the Israelite cemetery of Worms, regressive until the year 905 Übl [Icher] Zeitr [echnung] , along with biographical sketches and an appendix . Baer, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1855. ( Online . Accessed January 11, 2018).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lewysohn, p. 11f.
  2. ↑ Epstein, p. 191.
  3. ^ Lewysohn, p. 11f.
  4. ↑ According to the teacher Rothschild in a letter to Abraham Epstein (Epstein, p. 192).
  5. ↑ Epstein, p. 192.
  6. ↑ Epstein, p. 191.
  7. ↑ Epstein, p. 192f.
  8. ↑ Böcher, p. 6.
  9. ↑ Epidat: Worms Jewish Cemetery .

Coordinates: 49 ° 37 ′ 47 ″  N , 8 ° 21 ′ 20 ″  E