Grigorescu, Felicia: Forme de artă în cimitire evreieşti din nord-vestul Romaniei (Satu Mare, 2013)

Glosar de termeni

At some stones the separation is made by the life tree’s body which rises from the branched roots from the monument’s centre and ends with a thick crown in the superior part (Pic. 27). The epitaphs are placed at both sides of the body, under the crown. The vegetal decoration is natural, on the body being visible bows and the vertical, short crannies, specific of the bark, and the crown presents the cluster of the branches in a high relief to aspire to the detailed representation up to the leaf line.

A similar solution resulted from the replacement of the life tree as divider, with a menorah with seven arms (Pig. 28). This kind of stone is situated in the middle on the top, a second hunk monolith on which ravels the menorah’s arms as three concentric semicircles with candles in the top. The representation is natural as well, having the three arms of menorah attached in the central axis with three bows, with the opening of the reverberating candle body, on the top of the arms. The stone goes upon the high plinth, with the central part which goes upon the menorah’s leg thicker than the rest of the plinth. Menorah’s leg which divides equally the stone, decreases to the top and presents fluting. The shape was identified in the cemetery from the quarter Velenţa from Oradea, but in the neology cemetery, as well.

The division of the two epitaphs on a unicellular architectural funeral stone can make the extended pillar of fleur de lye (Pig. 29). This shape was identified in the old cemetery from Oradea.

There are stones which represent in the superior part a double drained arch, without median division. The two epitaphs are written on two narrow pillars, each under one of the arches. In the same kind of stone can appear a single epitaph.

Intermediate formulas are attached to the two subtypes, such as: a common pediment and a stone body resulted from two monuments with the columns or pillars attached by merging, which will become a unique body of the monument, with two detached fields (Pig. 50).

It is known that the double tomb stone shape was present already in the first part of the XVII century in close areas to the studied one, its shape being a rectangular

or

one, slightly curved on the top, in which two shapes are attached I.A.2.a.

5. Rare types (II.)

In this category were included rare shapes, probably the fruitage of the import, from remote areas or borrows from Christian cemeteries. These rare shapes appear especially in urban cemeteries and are specific to the narrow areas.

With the reserve not presenting only a small part of the large palette of existent shapes, the selection stopped at followings:

In the orthodox cemetery from Oradea is about to develop a type of monument in oval form, framed in a rectangle, or in a low oval (Pic. 31) supported by a plinth.

This shape frequently appears in Oradea and as border of the epitaph.

A usual slightly architectural shape, suffers a wide extension of its top, the harmonious circular or angular arch changing in a high-pitched shape, almost doubling the stone’s height (Fig. 32).

<s5 Scheiber Sándor, Magyarországi zsidó feliratok a III. századtól 1686-ig, Magyar Izraeliták Országos Képviselete kiadása, p 304.

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