Le iscrizioni nelle catacombe ebraiche di Venosa. Dove eravamo, a che punto siamo

This essay offers an outline of the present-day knowledge about the inscriptions found in the Jewish catacombs of Venosa. Of the 84 inscriptions known, 16 are lost, and 30 are not conclusively shown to be in an original setting. As for the remaining ones, for the most part they are badly damaged, but just a few have suffered from the injury of time. Most, in fact, have been damaged or destroyed by human hands. The first part of the essay deals with the history of epigraphical research in the monument from the earliest discoveries in the first half of 19th century to the year 2018, when a complete inventory of the texts was compiled from many years of surveys and controls. Unfortunately, for security reasons, some of the ambulacra could not be checked out: therefore the preservation of some epitaphs is not certain. Nonetheless, during these recent explorations, many new acquisitions and other pieces of information have been collected, and thanks to a thorough re-discovery and re-examination of older images and documentation, it is possible to recover some data otherwise given up for lost. The second part of the article presents some case studies and a new, updated inventory list of all the epigraphic materials ‒ epitaphs, both painted and graffiti, as well as isolated symbols ‒ which have been detected in these catacombs to this present day.