Bíró Szilvia - Székely Zoltán: Arrabona - Múzeumi Közlemények 49/1. Tanulmányok T. Szőnyi Eszter emlékére (Győr, 2011)
Mráv Zsolt - Gabrieli Gabriella: A scarbantiai Iseum és feliratos emlékei
ARRABONA 2011.49/1. TANULMÁNYOK THE ISEUM OF SCARBANTIA AND ITS INSCRIPTIONS The Isis sanctuary of Scarbantia, a Roman municipium along the Amber Road (today Sopron, County Győr-Moson-Sopron, Hungary) was found in the area of the Benedictine (former Franciscan) Monastery in 2002. The discovery of this sanctuary excludes the former opinion according to which the altar of Isis and Bubastis (CIL III 4234 = RIU 164) having been found in 1856 was set up in a private domus. The findspot of the altar is situated in the area of the recently localized Iseum, consequently, in the city of Scarbantia - similarly to the other town along the Amber Road (for instance Poetovio, Savaria, Carnuntum) there was also a temple dedicated to Isis. According to its inscriptions the beginning of the cult of Isis Augusta in its centre can be dated to the middle or the second half of the 1st century AD. The Iseum of Scarbantia was built in the centre of the town near the forum. This location in a municipium is not conicidentally, that the sanctuaries of foreign deities were ousted to the suburbs only from the colonies which had own pomerium. During its excavation three new inscribed stones were found that can be connected to the Graeco-Egyptian gods. Two of them were dedicated to Isis and one of them to Osiris Augustus. By means of publishing the three new inscriptions concerned, the number of the known Isiac inscriptions in Scarbantia was raised to four. This number is equal with the inscribed munuments of the well excavated Savarian Iseum. One of the new inscriptions was dedicated pro se et suis by a local female worshipper of Isis, Claudia Severa (cat. no. 2). This inscription demonstrates the strong and intimate tie which connected the women to Isis, moreover the role of the female whorsippers in the cult of the Alexandrian gods. The second Isiac inscription (cat. no. 3) mentions a certain Tiberius Iulis Ambi[- - -] of Eastern-Alpic origin as the dedicator of the altar. His cognomen must have been Ambidravus or Ambisavus. The altar was decorated with reliefed Isiac symbols. Besides the bust of the godess Isis, a sistrum and a bird appeared on the sides of the altar. The bird can be identified with a goose, which was the favourite gift to Isis. The cult of Osiris was also spread in Italy, but in the northern border provinces only his small bronze statuettes have been found until now. The recently found inscription (cat. no. 4) suggests the possible existence of an Osireion or a larger Osiris statue in Scarbantia. The inscription was set up by Publius (?) Domatius Ingenuus, a priest of the local Isis sanctuary (Isidis sacerdos). He could be a descendant of the Domatius merchant family, the earlier generations of which had been settied in Alsópéterfa/Unterspeterdorf (Burgenland, Austria) situated near Scarbantia. This family was originated from Campania and they had commercial interests also in Cyprus in the town of Kitium (Lamaka) while having started their business in Pannonia in the early imperial period. The members of this family might have became worsippers of both the Alexandrian gods and Osiris still in Cyprus that had belonged to Egypt for a long time. In Pannonia, the later generations of the family, which Domatius Ingenuus belonged to, might have followed this tradition. The new inscriptions have not modified our picture of the so called western group of the Pannonian cult of the Alexandrian gods that was identified by István Tóth. As in the other towns along the Amber Road the inscriptions of the Isis sanctuary of Scarbantia were also erected out of personal motives in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. Their consigners were citizens of the town, women or freedmen of Northern Italian merchant families who were the most zealous members of the local community of the Isis believers. Zsolt Mráv - Gabriella Gabrieli 238
