Jewish Inscriptions of Roman Volubilis

The Hebrew gravestone. A limestone epitaph reading “Matrona, daughter of Rabbi Yehuda, rest [in peace]” was first published in 1892 by the French scholar Philippe Berger, who dated it to the 3rd century CE. When researchers examined it in 2018, only a broken fragment with a few Hebrew letters survived.

The Greek epitaph of Caecilianus. A limestone tombstone in Greek reads, in translation, “Here lies Caecilianus, the protopolites, father of the synagogue of the Jews”, aged 45 years, 8 months and 3 days. “Father of the synagogue” was a title of honour for a leader of the congregation, and some scholars think it may also mark him as the donor of a synagogue building.

A Latin epitaph for a three-year-old child, Antonius Sabbatrai, whose name appears to come from the Hebrew word for Sabbath. Its present location is unknown.

Menorah lamps. A bronze lamp with a seven-branched candelabrum above the handle, dated to the 4th–5th century, is in the Rabat Archaeological Museum. A clay lamp with a menorah was also found.

In a 2019 study, Sofia Andreeva, Artem Fedorchuk and Michael Nosonovsky dated the group mainly to the 3rd century CE and concluded that a significant Jewish community lived at Volubilis, using both Greek and Hebrew. Greek seems to have mattered a great deal to them, probably because their families came from the eastern Roman Empire. Encyclopaedia Judaica gives an earlier date, the 2nd century CE.

The community probably had a synagogue, but no one knows where it stood. An older suggestion that a synagogue was later turned into one of the city’s basilicas is described by the 2019 authors as purely speculative.

Volubilis has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1997 and has regular opening hours and a ticket. According to the 2019 study, the Hebrew and Greek inscriptions are in the lapidarium (stone collection) of the on-site exhibition, where the Greek stone is labelled as the epitaph of the “synagogue rabbin”. Displays can change, so ask at the site whether they are on view, and allow time for the mosaics and the rest of the Roman city.

Volubilis makes a strong opening chapter for a Jewish-heritage trip: we often pair it with the Meknes mellah on a day out from Fes. The bronze menorah lamp can be seen in Rabat. Our Jewish heritage of Morocco hub places these finds in the longer story.