AN EARLY JEWISH GOLD MENORAH AMULET,LATE ROMAN TO BYZANTINE PERIOD, CIRCA 4TH-5TH CENTURY A.D.

拍品描述

AN EARLY JEWISH GOLD MENORAH AMULET, LATE ROMAN TO BYZANTINE PERIOD, CIRCA 4TH-5TH CENTURY A.D. Of circular form, the thin gold sheet worked in repoussé and bordered by a twisted rope-pattern frame. The central field is dominated by a seven-branched menorah rising from a tripod base, the arms drawn as concentric curves issuing from a central shaft and surmounted by seven flame-shaped lights along a horizontal bar. Flanking the base at either side are two further ritual implements rendered in low relief, their forms suggesting a shofar to one side and what may be read as an incense shovel or lulav to the other, both treated as flattened silhouettes with internal linear detail. The reverse is plain. The pendant is surmounted by a separately worked suspension fitting of conical form with applied collars and a pair of lateral loops for cord or chain, attached to the disc by a beaded transverse bar. The iconography belongs to the established Late Antique Jewish visual repertoire that crystallised in the centuries following the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70. The menorah, originally the seven-branched lampstand of the Tabernacle and later of the Jerusalem Temple, became after the loss of the Temple the principal emblem of Jewish identity and of memory of the sanctuary. Its pairing with the shofar, and with implements such as the incense shovel, lulav and ethrog, forms the standard cluster of Temple and festival objects that appears on synagogue mosaics, oil lamps, glass roundels and funerary inscriptions from Palestine, Syria, North Africa and the Italian peninsula during the Late Roman and Byzantine periods. On a personal amulet, the same image carries a protective and identifying function, marking the wearer as Jewish and invoking the sanctity of the Temple cult upon the body. The choice of gold is significant. Sheet-gold amulets and pendants of this kind belong to a wider Late Antique tradition in which precious metal carried apotropaic value in its own right, the incorruptibility of the material understood as analogous to the protection sought from the image it bore. Comparable gold pendants and amulet cases survive from Jewish, Christian and pagan contexts across the eastern Mediterranean, sharing techniques of repoussé sheet-work, rope-twist borders and applied suspension fittings. Within this shared technical vocabulary, the Jewish examples are distinguished by their iconographic programme rather than by their construction, the menorah and its attendant implements substituted for the crosses, gorgoneia or divine figures of neighbouring traditions. This amulet exemplifies the visual culture of the Jewish diaspora and homeland communities of the Late Roman and early Byzantine centuries, when the menorah had completed its passage from a Temple furnishing into the central portable sign of Jewish belonging. Worn on the body in beaten gold, the same image that decorated the synagogue floor and the burial niche served here as both confession of identity and amuletic protection. Height: 6.2cm

图片