Jessica Dello Russo

Recent publications have reminded us once again of what little information exists about a Jewish catacomb discovered in 1866 below the Vigna Cimarra in Rome. New research, however, has revealed its exact location and condition. Access to and study of this catacomb look far more promising now than they have been for generations. With the catacomb's fortunate preservation, de Rossi's "note" can now be transformed into a modern presentation of the site.

Elsa Laurenzi's presentation of the Jewish catacombs of the Vigna Randanini in Rome for the Gangemi Series on "Roma Ebraica" is the first detailed archaeological monograph on the site in many generations, a fact most surprising given the catacomb's significance as one of the few monumental testimonies to Ancient Jews in Rome thus far revealed. That the book itself is jointly sponsored by Italy's Cultural Ministry and the Jewish Community of Rome (with funding provided by the Elio Toaff Foundation for Jewish Culture) is a sign of a new season of collaboration between "Synagogue and State" on the conservation of Jewish cemeteries in Italy, a legal obligation for the country's government and long an issue of concern to Jews. Laurenzi's detailed and informative overview will serve as a guide for future investigations. Many pieces of the puzzle exist, but need reassembling. It is exciting to take stock of the work in the Vigna Randanini catacomb up...

The legacy of Mr. John Harvey Treat (Harvard A.M., 1861) continues to provide Harvard today with the financial means necessary to acquire works on the catacombs for its library collections. The extraordinary story of how this Lawrence businessman actively promoted the excavation and preservation of the ancient cemeteries in Rome is a worthy precursor to ICS founder Estelle Shohet Brettman's mission—or, as Treat would define it, "cause"—of gathering information about these archaeological sites for their use in Boston by students from all over the world. The Treat Book Fund has broadened its range today to include books on many Christian traditions, and the expansion of Harvard's library network has sent these books to all corners of the university.50 A large part of Treat's original collection of books on Christian Archaeology and the catacombs remains intact, however, in Widener Library's section on archaeology.

The publication of Elsa Laurenzi's Le catacombe ebraiche in 2011 inspired a conference in late February of the following year (2012) on current research in the Jewish catacombs of Rome. As Laurenzi's book is, in essence, a comprehensive introduction to this area of study, and reasonably cautious on all counts, it is the conference itself, involving a great diversity of perspectives and experiences, that has the most potential to inspire new research and debate on these sites. For this reason, Laurenzi's work is considered along with what was discussed at the event. The link to the conference video is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2LKZootsLk.

Review of: Ferraiuolo, Augusto. Religious Festive Practices in Boston's North End: Ephemeral Identities in an Italian American Community (Albany, 2009) in Journal of the North End Historical Society 1, ed. J. Pasto (March, 2012), pp. 87-92.

Discussion of signatures left on the walls of a painted chamber in the Catacombs of Vigna Randanini in Rome. While incomplete, its data raise issues of access to the catacomb in the 19th and 20th centuries. Interestingly enough, American Jewish names top the list. No particular name stands out for historical significance, but this opinion is subject to change with further analysis of this unique characteristic of the site.

The inscription CIJ 1.1, a child's funerary epitaph in Greek, was first published by Father Antonio Lupi, S. J. in his Dissertatio ed animadversiones ad nuper inventum Severae Martyris epitaphium, Palermo, 1734, p. 140. As noted by Father Antonio Ferrua, S.J., all known copies of the inscription up to the present time depend on Lupi's edition. The inscription itself "disappears" after the mid-eighteenth century, but is included in nearly all the studies and collections of Jewish inscriptions in Rome following the recovery of a number of examples from the Monteverde catacomb in 1748. The neutrality of the text of CIJ 1, 1 may be workshop influenced: today we see that what Winkelmann's described as an "urn of poor workmanship" is, in fact, a small marble sarcophagus, more or less intact. The front of this container is decorated with human and animal figures flanking a large rectangular tablet at center that contains the epitaph. Although an exceptional ...

In 1927, the Harvard classicist Harry Joshua Leon (1896-1967) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation, De Judaeorum Antiquorum Sepulcretis Romae Repertis Quaestiones Selectae, (naturally, for a Harvard Ph.D. at that time, written entirely in Latin), a collection of about 500 epitaphs from the Jewish catacombs of Rome, accompanied by a short introduction to scholarship on the subject later published in English as "The Jewish Catacombs and Inscriptions of Rome: an account of their discovery and subsequent history," (Hebrew Union College Annual 5, 1928, pp. 299¬-314). In no way can our short presentation do justice to Leon's profound learning in Classical languages and literature, or comment at length on his observations – he himself would refrain from calling them "conclusions" – about the Jews in Ancient Rome. Instead, we discuss a number of Leon's approaches that we have found most useful in our own work on Jewish catacombs, notably in the assessm...

for AJS 2013 Seminar, Materiality of Jewish Death Session One on "Communities and Contexts": This contribution examines the arrangements of the distinctive tomb form known as the "kokh" (pl. "kokhim") within certain areas of the catacomb of the Vigna Randanini in Rome, drawing attention to their characteristics and organization in light of the kokh's limited presence in the other catacombs of Rome during the third and fourth centuries CE. It will be included in forthcoming publication of Eric M. Meyers and Sean P. Burrus, The Practice and Materiality of Jewish Death (forthcoming in Duke Judaic Series, Eisenbrauns).

The Jewish catacomb below the Vigna Randanini in Rome underwent a "check-up" in the late spring of 2000 that confirmed the very satisfactory condition of the galleries first explored in the mid-nineteenth century and still accessible today. An equally positive result was that the microclimate was stable and posed no immediate threat to the few frescoed<br> areas of the catacomb.1 Yet also emerging from this report was that a small number of delicate surface areas inside the<br> site were falling away and could be reinforced to prevent the eventual collapse of larger sections. A glance at the accompanying plan will show these sensitive areas are found for the most part at the intersections of the galleries where intensive funerary use often weakened a wall's original stability. Over the course of roughly seventeen centuries, and a century and a half of modern exposure after excavation, the catacomb was showing its age.<br> In the summer of 2001, archit...

Critical analysis of the study and documentation of a Imperial Era necropolis developed as a cemetery for Jews in the Late Roman Era in the southwestern slope of the Monteverde Vecchio quarter in Rome. The pioneering 19th century Talmudic scholar and historian, Abraham Berliner, wrote that he had "traveled the entire Roma Pagana... and Roma Christiana" to follow the history<br> of the Jews in Rome. In the face of the loss of so much physical evidence from the Monteverde cemetery, the same approach must now be taken to write a history of the Jewish catacombs in Rome, for similar, even shared, paths were laid for the Christian and Jewish catacombs's origins, development, abandonment, and partial preservation. Just as recent work on Jewish artifacts has argued against an "isolated" existence for Rome's Jewish community in Late Antiquity, so, too, a study of the Jewish catacombs, particularly those on the Monteverde, considered for generations by many, ...

Early-twentieth-century plans of Rome detail an intense period of construction on the southernmost slope of the Monteverde above the Circonvallazione Gianicolense.1 A small cluster of paths next to deep, concave openings near the bottom of the hillside, however, marked where the last excavated areas of an ancient Jewish cemetery had been seen before its demolition.2 Leading up to that moment—a devastating landslide on October 14, 1928—were over three hundred years of exploration and spoliation of the site by Rome’s elite. Unlike earlier pillaging of the ancient cemetery by unknown forces, modern visitors, from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries, left conspicuous evidence of their passage, not in the increasingly bare cemetery galleries, but in documents, in studies, and in their collections or displays of unique epitaphs and artifacts that emphasized Jewish elements, something no longer evident on the site following the construction of a new residential area—the “Monteverde Quar...

As the subtitle of the book under critical review suggests (D. Rossi, M. Di Mento eds., La catacomba ebraica di Monteverde: vecchi dati e nuove scoperte , Rome 2013), the four-year study by the Soprintendenza Speciale dei Beni Archeolo­gici di Roma on evidence for Jewish burials on the hill slopes above the via Portuense and Pozzo Pantaleo valley (in the present XII Circoscrizione of Rome) analyses textual evidence and documented artifacts as well as new excavations at or near the last finding of Jewish tombs in galleries below the far southwestern corner of the Janiculum ridge. This compilation of data leads to logical conclusions on the catacomb’s contents, chronology and location, but should one ask point-blank if anything of the Jewish catacomb (the subject of the title) has actually been found, the answer will seem as unclear as the reasons for the site’s present obscurity. The reflections on the Rossi-Di Mento publication focus in particular on the circumstances affecting the ...

Abstract: Questo primo volume della serie Judaica Venusina è dedicato alle catacombe ebraiche nella collina della Maddalena di Venosa (Basilicata) e ospita undici contributi, suddivisi in due parti. Nella prima parte sono stati accolti tutti i testi (di M.L. Nava, V. Cracolici, G. Di Pace, M. Di Lieto, M. Savarese, A. Mantrisi) già elaborati per i convegni svoltisi nel 2003 e 2009 in occasione della riapertura al pubblico delle catacombe, i cui atti non sono stati mai pubblicati. I testi, rivisti e integrati, illustrano in dettaglio le metodologie seguite, le ricerche svolte e i risultati ottenuti nel corso dei lavori di consolidamento e restauro delle catacombe, compiuti principalmente agli inizi degli anni 2000. Sono presentati per la prima volta, fra l’altro, i dati sulle cosiddette catacombe “di Santa Rufina”, a loro volta interessate, nelle stesse circostanze, da ampi lavori di consolidamento e restauro. La sezione si conclude con un saggio aggiuntivo (di S. Mutino) in cui si t...

Attendees at the Archaeology Institute of America's Centennial Meeting in Boston in late December of 1979 had an exceptional opportunity to learn about new research on Jews in the Roman Diaspora, including Jewish tombs in the underground cemeteries or "catacombs' of Rome and Venosa. With the financial backing of AIA Deputy Coordinator Estelle Shohet Brettman, an international panel of experts on Ancient Judaism convened at the AIA meeting to share their work on archaeological evidence of Jewish communities within the larger context of Greco-Roman civilization. 

The meeting of like minds at the 1979 meeting was timely, and not just for the AIA's big anniversary. While none of the panelists spoke primarily about Rome's Jewish catacombs, these were the archaeological remains most in the public eye at the time, as Italy and the Vatican moved forward to ratify a new treaty which would remove these ancient Jewish burial grounds from Vatican control, a deal at long last made in 1984. Talking about Ancient Jews in Rome was the same as talking about the tombs of Jews in Rome, since virtually all the evidence was from mortuary remains. It was too big an elephant in the room to be ignored.

And it wasn't. The other big Boston event that coincided with the AIA panel was an exhibit of photographs of the Jewish and Christian Catacombs of Rome taken by Brettman herself. This exhibit, however, was not held in a conference hall, or limited to a scholarly audience. It was free and open to all in the foyer of the Boston Public Library from the December holiday season through early February of 1980 (extended by popular demand). According to BPL Assistant Director Liam Kelly, Brettman's display was one of the most successful programs in memory held at the site.

At the time of the BPL show's inauguration, the International Catacomb Society was born. This presentation contextualizes the significance of the AIA and BPL events for the society's founding, and outlines the rich public legacy Brettman left behind at her death in 1991.

As the sub-title of the book under critical review suggests, the results of a four-year study by the Soprintendenza Speciale dei Beni Archeologici di Roma of evidence for Jewish burials on the hill slopes above the via Portuense and Pozzo Pantaleo valley (in the present XII Circoscrizione of Rome) take into account the analysis of textual evidence and documented artifacts as well as fresh research at or near the last sighting of Jewish tombs in galleries below the far southwestern corner of the Janiculum ridge. 
This compilation of data leads to logical conclusions for the catacomb’s contents, chronology, and location, but should one ask point-blank: “Has anything of the Jewish catacomb (the subject of the title) actually been found?” the answer will seem as unclear as the reasons for the site’s present obscurity.  The following reflections on the Rossi-Di Mento publication focus in particular on the circumstances affecting the study and preservation of this Jewish catacomb since its inception and how the investigations in course should lead to a better understanding of what has contributed to the catacomb’s present state.

Figure 1. Restoration work carried out between the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries (that of 2001 numbered 1–11) in the Vigna Randanini catacombs. Adaptation of the 1984 PCAS plan.(F. Balzani, Pontificia Commissione di Archeologia Sacra ufficio tecnico: archives). Figure 2. Proposal of architect F. Balzani for interventions in the catacomb (2001).

This advance copy of an article in press discusses the archaeological evidence of an ancient Roman necropolis below the Villa Torlonia in Rome.  The Jewish catacombs should not be seen as “isolated” from this greater context, and both material and literary evidence suggest that, in all probability, the underground cemeteries remained at least partially accessible in medieval times.  The article contains previously unpublished illustrations of Jewish artifacts from Rome and documentation of other catacombs known to have existed in the site.

The exhibit "Jews - An Italian Story. The First Thousand Years" at Italy's National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah (MEIS) through 16 September 2018 displays over two hundred Roman and Medieval-era artifacts from areas of Italy in which Jews are known to have lived, worked, and worshipped within broader societal contexts from the densely urban to the sparsely rural within the time frame of the second century BCE through the eleventh century CE. Much ground is covered, both chronologically and geographically, and only the exceptional occasion of the MEIS's provisional inauguration in late 2017 (the museum is not scheduled to be fully operational before 2020) could put the Italian bureaucratic universe in perfect alignment to make possible this event.

Thursday, December 3, 2015, 10-12 noon, Room 2241, Nyack College, 2 Washington Street, New York, NY
NYACK Graduate Program in Ancient Judaism and Christian Origins Colloquia Series on Reading the New Testament as Second Temple Jewish Literature
10-10:40: Jessica Dello Russo. "Figures in the Shadows: Contextualizing Jewish Tombs in the Catacombs of Rome"
10:40-11:20: Steven Notley. "Pontius Pilate: Discordant Images in a Historical Portrait"
11:20-12:00: Steven Fine. "Between Paidea and Sinai: Torah Shrines and the Visual Culture of Diaspora Jews"
Free and Open to the Public

Archaeology and Text: Toward Establishing a Meaningful Dialogue between Written Sources and Material Finds.
National Library in Jerusalem and Ariel University, May 10-11 2015

Title: “Traditions of the Rock: Discerning and Defining Ancient Jewish Burial Grounds in Rome”

Speaker: Jessica Dello Russo, Executive Director, International Catacomb Society and Doctoral Candidate, Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology

Abstract: The modern discovery and exploration of the burial sites in Rome that have taken on the universal denomination of “catacombs” because of their structural similarities to each other and to an additional number of underground cemeteries in Italy associated with the early Christian martyrs’ cults reads like a heroic epic spanning generations of humanistic conquest and plunder of ancient Rome.  From the convivial countryside outings of erudite gentlemen in a still-decadent post-Reformation age to the sensational disclosures of the Vatican archaeologists at a time when only a miracle could save the Papacy’s temporal authority over Rome, the power and the glory of Roman Catholicism was made to emanate from the discovery of specific groupings of long-forgotten Roman dead.  Special regulations governing the access to and study of these burial sites were put into place by the Papal Curia at a very early period of the catacombs' detection and study, and the manner in which their artifacts were extracted and displayed also made “catacomb archaeology” a very distinct activity in the field, some would say even into our present time. 
A question that archaeologists have had to contend with time and time again is that of the catacombs’ “Christian” nature, that is, how the structural and material evidence of the tombs relates to the textual sources for early Christianity and maintain a degree of continuity of Roman Catholic devotional practices from antiquity to the present.  This is the point when the story reads more like a detective novel than a romance, for the evidence is not at all clear as to which aspects of Christian life and devotion are actually represented, especially in the earliest phases of the excavation and use of these sites for burial in late Imperial times. 
A key factor used both in support and in denial of the catacombs' special relationship to the early Church is the undeniable presence of Jewish tombs in collective underground settings in Rome – the “Jewish catacombs” that in form and function are virtually identical to their so-called “Christian” counterparts at the time the catacombs were simply places for burial, rather than the evocative settings for Medieval martyrs’ shrines.  How these non-Christian tombs were pushed to the margins of research into the catacombs until quite recently brings a uncertain note to the tale, and one that needs elaboration in order to clarify the presence of both Jews and Christians in the cemeteries of Late Ancient Rome. This paper to present at the "Archaeology and Text" conference identifies the critical periods of Roman catacomb history – from the time they were burial sites in antiquity to the point when they became a source of apologetic evidence for the Counter-Reformation Church and its later resistance to secularization – and examines how the sites long conveyed a universal statement of Christianity at the expense of an equitable documentation of their habitat and distribution that comprised as well of the tombs of many Jews.

Session One (Sunday): Communities and Contexts

Marginal or Monumental?  “Kokhim” in the Catacombs of Rome

Is there a distinctly “Jewish” type of funerary architecture employed in the catacombs of Rome?  This contribution examines the arrangements of the tomb form known as the “kokh” (pl. “kokhim”) within certain areas of the catacomb of the Vigna Randanini in Rome, drawing attention to their characteristics and organization in light of the kokh’s limited presence in the other catacombs of Rome in the third and fourth centuries CE.  The majority of Jews in this site – as elsewhere in Rome – buried their dead in a typically Roman fashion, using the most simple and common methods available to create a tomb.  The evidence of kokhim is concentrated in three small underground complexes or hypogaea that were excavated independently, and with very different points of origin, before being integrated into a larger, communal cemetery also used by Jews.  This situation is consistent with the development of distinctly “Jewish” and “Christian” underground cemeteries in the suburbs of Rome beginning in the third century CE, as the communal necropoleis appear to have been de-emphasized for largely homogeneous sites.  The Vigna Randanini catacomb thus exhibits signs of Jewish burial activity coupled with innovations in local cemetery design to create a uniquely Jewish cemetery on a scale not previously seen for this community in Rome.

Our topographical analysis of the site, including a complete inventory of the seventy or so kokhim revealed thus far and a new map of their situation, illustrates the distinct ways in which the “Randanini kokhim” are distributed and designed.  Some kokhim are strikingly uniform in their shape and dimensions; others have their inner shafts enlarged in an idiosyncratic fashion to accommodate additional tombs.  They can be one of many forms of burial in a “hybrid” setting, or be featured prominently in an environment that seems to have been created with exactly this form of tomb in mind.  With nearly every kokhim now violated and reduced to a simple cavity in the tuff, it is this data that must be collected and studied to help us to broaden our understanding of the appearance of this tomb in the Vigna Randanini catacomb and better define its structural relationship to variations on the kokh or tomb “a forno” in other subterranean funerary spaces in Rome.  This is a particularly critical process, because the design is quite rare in Rome, and outside of the Vigna Randanini catacomb is most often found in what have been termed “private” catacombs, in which a certain manner of coexistence between pagan and non-pagan patrons or clientele is preserved.  Almost none of the cemeteries in question have been adequately documented or restored, let alone definitively labeled as “pagan”, “Jewish” or “Christian”.  We explore, then, the possible motives for the inclusion of this distinctive tomb design in the development of these sites, and whether or not it can connect to certain religious beliefs or other expressions of identity in late ancient Rome. 

Session One (Monday): Practice and Politics 

Chair: Ruth Langer

“Teach Your Daughters Wailing”: mMo’ed Qatan 3:8-9 and the Gendering of Tannaitic Funeral Practice" Gail Labovitz (American Jewish University)

This paper will explore particularly the activities which the tannaitic authors imagine women to undertake as part of the funeral process, using mMo’ed Qatan 3:8-9 as a point of entry. Integrating biblical, rabbinic, Greco-Roman, and Christian materials, questions to considered here include: was public mourning a professional role for rabbinic women, what was the nature of women’s activities and laments at funerals, did the forms of lament and praise for the deceased offered at the funeral differ (materially and/or in terms of their social valuation) if offered by men or by women, why might these roles have been assigned especially to women?

“Staging Jewish death at the turn of the Medieval Era” Sylvie Anne Goldberg (EHESS)

The Treatise Semahot (3rd century) shows that during the Antiquity, death and all that surrounds it were subjected to special ceremonials: professional mourners, weeping, elegies, first burial and second-burial are displaying a spectacular image of death. However, this staging of death has undergone many changes over time. As it is well known that many rituals, customs, and prayers were introduced during the Middle-Ages, this paper will therefore seek to focus on some of them selected on the basis of their material aspects, containing concrete representation of the approaches of death in the Jewish world at that time.

“From matsevah to Grabmal -- Central European gravestones as markers of Jewish cultural evolution” Jess Olson (Yeshiva University)

The most ubiquitous -- and historically useful -- pieces of material culture surrounding death in Jewish cultural history is the matsevah, the tombstone. For the most part, historians have approached these often complex works of sculpture in the modern period primarily as conveyances of demographic information, but the design of Jewish matsevot in the 19th and 20th centuries provides valuable, and unique insight into the evolving tastes and cultural identities of central European Jews. This paper will examine and interpret the evolution of these monuments in the context of evolving Jewish identity in Germany and Austria-Hungary between 1848 and 1914.

"In-between Graves: Space and Class in Cemetery Conflicts among the Jews of Interwar Poland" Daniel Rosenthal (Ph.D. Candidate, University of Toronto)

The growth of the urban Jewish population of Poland after the First World War strained existing cemetery infrastructure to such an extent that communities were forced to reorganize how burial space was allocated and defined. These changes to the use of space in sanctified burials grounds indicate how Jewish officials navigated their dual responsibilities to their poor constituency and to the new governmental bodies of the Second Polish Republic.

“History, science and religious politics: The archaeology of medieval Jewish cemeteries” Samuel D. Gruber (Syracuse University)

The 19th-century rediscovery and excavation of the Rue de la Harpe Jewish cemetery in Paris and the Jewish catacombs in Rome alerted and excited historians about the potential rewards of the archeology of European Jewish sites, including cemeteries, but for the most part little conscious effort was made to identify the locations or to methodically examine the remains of Jewish cemeteries until the 1980s, when again, like in 19th-century Paris, new urban development encroached on previously undisturbed burial grounds. This paper and discussion will examine recent methods of and finds from Jewish cemetery excavations in England, Spain, the Czech Republic and elsewhere, and how new discoveries have been greeted with enthusiasm and opposition by different quarters of the academic and religious Jewish communities.

Session Two (Tuesday): Archaeology and Imagined Communities

Chair: Eric Meyers

"City and Periphery - Jerusalem and Judean Burials during the Late Second Temple Period - An Archaeological Overview" - Boaz Zissu (Bar Ilan)

While the urban necropolis of Jerusalem during the late Second Temple period (2nd c. BCE-1st c. CE) has been thoroughly studied, the more distant Jewish rural areas have been mostly neglected. The proposed paper attempts to present an overview of the tombs' architecture, burial customs and chronology of Jewish burial in the Judean countryside vs. those of the urban center of Jerusalem during the 2nd c. BCE - 2nd c. CE.Fine

"Jewish Others: Visual Culture and Ethnic Identification at Beit Shearim" - Sean Burrus (Duke, Ph.D. Candidate)

The catacombs at Beit Shearim (ca. 200-400 CE) offer a chance to explore how disparate communities, the local Galilean and the diasporic, come together in the same funerary sphere. This paper will examine the role of visual culture in the Beit Shearim catacombs as a point of demarcation between communities.         

“Between Beit She’arim and Eden: Rabbinic reflection on the Tomb of Makhpelah” Steven Fine (Yeshiva University)

This paper explores the ways that ancient rabbis constructed their own vision of the biblical Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. It suggests that the rabbis imagined the tomb complex in ways that reflect monumental communal burial complexes of late antiquity, most notably those at Beit She'arim in the lower Galilee. It further argues that the rabbis project burial practices and attitudes toward the dead of their own time onto the Tomb of Machpelah.

"Marginal or Monumental? Kokhim in the Catacombs of Rome” -  Jessica Dello Russo (Northeastern University)

This contribution to the AJS seminar on "The Materiality of Jewish Death" examines the arrangement of multiple examples of the distinctive tomb type known as the "kokh" (pl. "kokhim") within certain areas of the catacomb of the Vigna Randanini in Rome, drawing attention to their unusual characteristics and organization in this particular site in light of their limited presence in the other catacombs in Rome and most other cemeteries outside of Palestine in the period of Late Antiquity.

Concluding Discussion"

Join us for a conversation with Jessica Dello Russo on the Jewish Catacoms of Rome. Jessica is a graduate of the Vatican’s Institute for Christian Archaeology in Rome and a longtime collaborator with the International Catacomb Society, an organization founded in 1980 by Vilna Shul member Estelle Shohet Brettman for “the preservation and documentation of the Roman catacombs and other sites that illustrate the common influences on Jewish, Christian and pagan iconography and funeral practices during the time of the Roman Empire.”  A number of Jessica’s articles on the Jewish catacombs of Rome are now available on the International
Catacomb Society website . She has guided many organizations, schools and individuals through these historic sites, and continues to document their excavation.
The conversation is free but donations are appreciated.

The American Academy Archaeological Study Collection catalogue is online at: http://nvb.aarome.org/.
A complete list of photographs in the AAR collections (including images of many of the sites from which artifacts were obtained) is at: http://www.aarome.org/research/photo-archive/index-collections.
Note: The AAR no longer allows long-term study and storage of finds from AAR-Affiliated Archaeology Projects.  The stipulations for the use of the Villa Chiaraviglio Archaeology Laboratory can be downloaded from: http://www.aarome.org/sites/default/files/documents/2013_affiliation_application.pdf.

"The archive of the International Catacomb Society contains approximately 5,000 photographic images, which are completely digitized and cataloged in a searchable database. The strengths of the archive include the Jewish catacombs of Rome, epigraphy from the catacombs, and early Christian and Jewish iconography.
The archive may be consulted in person by appointment or by contacting the staff of the society with a research request. The archive is available online for members of the International Catacomb Society."

Website Index:
7 March 2002: New perspectives on Christian sarcophagi in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
26 October 2001: Scheduled Closures of Christian Catacombs at Rome 2001-2002
July 16, 2001: Relocation of the Priscilla Archive to the Central Offices of the PCAS
July 16, 2001: Correction to article of 9/4/2000
14 October 2001:"Dialogo ed Evangelizzazione nell' Arte delle Catacombe"
11 December 2000: 75th Anniversary of the Founding of the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology
29 November 2000: Conference on Judaism and Christianity Held in Rome
22 November 2000: Exhibit on the Mosaics in S. M. Maggiore to Open in December
10 October 2000: Christiana Loca: Christian Space in Rome during the First Millennium
1 September 2000: New Epigraphy Collection in the Museo Nazionale Romano
4 August 2000: Reopening of the Catacombs of Ss. Peter and Marcellinus
23 July 2000: Peter and Paul in Rome Exhibition Opens at the Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome
1 April 2000: Publications available from the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology in Rome
30 March 2000: Ten Years of Restoration in the Hypageum of Via Dino Compagni (Via Latina Catacomb)
3 February 2000: 500 Million Lire to Finance Jewish Catacomb Study

"At the dawn of the 19th century, descendants of the original Puritan settlers of Boston began to adopt a more enlightened, cosmopolitan, and progressive set of social and political mores. Taking their name from the elite upper caste of India, the "brahmins" of Boston presided over several decades of economic and social upheaval, which saw the birth of Unitarianism and the rise of fervent Abolitionism leading, eventually, to the Civil War. During this three-hour walking seminar, we'll look at how this group of Bostonians redefined their city and set the tone for rest of America during this period.

Although the focus of our walk will be Beacon Hill and the Boston Common, we begin just down slope at the Old South Meeting House, one of the oldest churches in Boston and the place where the Boston Tea Party was planned. Here we'll get our bearings with a brief overview of some of the social and political developments in Boston at the turn of the century (the turn of the 19th, that is).

During our walk, one theme we'll address is how the Brahmin classes began to look outward, beyond Boston, to the world at large. Whether through immigration, trade, or intellectual curiosity, Boston under the Brahmins became much more situated in an international context. We'll begin looking at this with the Irish Famine memorial here in front of the Old South Meeting House and continue with a visit to the Boston Atheneum, the city's most prestigious membership library that is infused with Italian sculpture, French maps, and testimonials of the Brahmin's great love affair with the Grand European tour.

Our walk will take us into the heart of Beacon Hill. We'll discuss the architectural and urban planning context of this beguiling neighborhood, and visit such key landmarks as the Boston Common and State House. We'll stop by the African Meeting House and Shaw Memorial to discuss the central role that Abolitionism played in Boston at this time and the effect of the Civil War on the city. We will also look closely at Jewish history in Boston and stop by the Vilna Shul/Boston Center for Jewish Heritage, where some of our docents have been involved in archaeological research.

After meandering through this neighborhood and visiting several other historic homes, we'll wind up in the Boston Common, the central landscape of Boston and a perfect denouement to our discussion of this city, its inhabitants, and their crucial role in American history.
Note: not all of the sites mentioned in this description are open every day. The State House is closed on weekends; Vilna Shul on Saturdays; and African
American Museum closed Sundays."

"Since its founding in 1630, Boston has embodied many of the historical themes that have shaped America including commerce, political revolution, social innovation, and waves of immigration that formed the backbone of this northern capital. Of all the city's neighborhoods none symbolizes and captures the essence of Boston than its North End, a maze of winding colonial-era streets and the backdrop to some of the most significant moments in American history. During this three-hour walking seminar with a local historian we will explore the North End's back alleys and side streets, painting a portrait of Boston's evolution from the 17th to the 21st century.

We begin our walk near the Blackstone Block, a small network of alleyways and structures dating back to the colonial era. Situated here is the 18th century home of John Hancock's brother, Ebenezer, adjacent to the Boston Stone. Using the streets themselves as visual clues we'll consider the topographical advantages of the North End—nearly separated from the mainland by inlets and swamps—for the early settlers in Boston. Our perambulations will take us through Haymarket, one of the city's longest standing outdoor markets and a place where North Enders still buy their groceries.

Tracing a path along streets that still bear the names of important Bostonians or long vanished features we'll discuss the major developments of the North End as it evolved into one of the busiest shipping ports on the Atlantic seaboard during the colonial era and became America's gateway to Europe. We'll use some of the old storefronts and pubs to discuss the rise of a longshoreman class and shipping industry and paint a portrait of the ethnic and racial changes the North End witnessed as English and Africans settled in the district, followed by Irish, Portuguese fisherman, Jews, and Italians. Of course, the neighborhood's importance is etched on our collective memory through the famous ride of Paul Revere on the eve of the American Revolution, and we will look deeply into how the character of this corner of Boston informed and influenced the radicalism of those events, stopping along the way the 17th century Paul Revere House and 1723 Old North Church, the oldest house of worship in Boston.

The North End is a palimpsest of history, with fragments of different centuries all woven together. As a result, we will jump forward at key moments to consider the industrial revolution and Boston's decline as New York overtook it in shipping and how the factories of the North End moved to the suburbs and then farther afield. Old warehouses, wharves, and tenements are now converted into cafes, restaurants, and condominiums, often stitched delicately into the architecture and context of the city's history. Depending on time and how our conversation unfolds we may end the walk down at the waterfront where a park commemorates the Italian immigrants who've defined the North End in the last hundred years. With kinetic Boston harbor behind us and the new linear park leftover from the "big dig" before us, we'll look back at the North End with a unique sense of its role in Boston and American history."

Further information on the documentation of the Vigna Cimarra catacomb in Jessica Dello Russo, The Jewish Catacomb of the Vigna Cimarra (2d. ed. 2013), Roma Subterranea Judaica 2, Publications of the International Catacomb Society, Boston, MA (download article pdf at https://independent.academia.edu/JessicaDelloRusso).

I identified and copied down a circular brick stamp with Jewish motifs imprinted upon a piece of broken tile (tegola) of a yellowish clay that emerged from the fill of a broken terra-cotta container (dolium?) in the American Academy in Rome/Packard Foundation Statonia excavations of 2000.  Results of these excavations are forthcoming the Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome (eds. T. Pena - E. Papi).  .

The American Academy in Rome began a joint archaeological collaboration with the Deutsches Archaologisches Institut Rom in 1999 in an area of the Roman port city of Ostia.  Geophysical surveys under the auspices of the DAI Rom and aerial photograph analysis had revealed structural features of what were then unexcavated areas of Ostia.  A number of trenches were strategically dug to verify these indications and provide more data from a stratigraphic dig.  Dr. Archer Martin, Mellon Professor of Archaeology at the American Academy of Rome, directed the analysis of finds from the dig site.  Martin and an international team of pottery specialists worked on identifying, describing, and dating the finds.  I was a member of this group in 2000, after completing Martin's first pottery seminar at the Academy (which later evolved into the Howard Comfort FAAR ’29 Summer Program in Roman Pottery (http://www.aarome.org/apply/summer-programs).

Vaults of Memory:
The Roman Jewish Catacombs and Their Context
in the Ancient Mediterranean World [Electronic edition]

by Estelle Shohet Brettman, Amy Hirschfeld & Florence Wolsky (with Liza Wolsky)

Web edition revision and preface by Jessica Dello Russo