The mikveh of Girona’s last medieval synagogue

Authors

  • Sílvia Planas Museu d’Història dels Jueus, Girona
  • Joel Colomer CULTURÀNIA S.C.
  • Jordi Sagrera Universitat de Girona
  • Jordi Vivo Universitat de Girona

Keywords:

archaeology, synagogue, mikveh, Girona, 15th century

Abstract

In 1415, Girona’s Jewish community was confined to an enclosure physically separated from the rest of the city by a wall. It was in that scaled-down Jewish quarter that the aljama (a Spanish term of Arabic origin used in old official documents to designate self-governing communities of Moors and Jews living under Spanish rule) established Girona’s third and last synagogue. Archive documents show that it stood on part of what is now the site of the Bonastruc ça Porta Centre. In the interests of having a more comprehensive and accurate record of the Jewish community’s physical spaces and heritage, Girona City Council has organised various archaeological excavations at the spot in question. The most recent digs, which took place in 2014 and 2015, unearthed several structures associated with a mikveh (ritual bath). Drawing on all the surviving documentary evidence, we describe how those structures must have been and trace their history over the 15th century

Keyboards: archaeology, synagogue, mikveh, Girona, 15th century

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Sílvia Planas, Museu d’Història dels Jueus, Girona




Joel Colomer, CULTURÀNIA S.C.

Jordi Sagrera, Universitat de Girona

Jordi Vivo, Universitat de Girona

Downloads

Published

2017-06-21

Issue

Vol. 12: 2016-2017

Section

Articles

License

The intellectual property of articles belongs to the respective authors.

On submitting articles for publication to the journal TAMID. Revista Catalana Anual d’Estudis Hebraics, authors accept the following terms:
  1. Authors assign to Societat Catalana d’Estudis Hebraics (a subsidiary of Institut d’Estudis Catalans) the rights of reproduction, communication to the public and distribution of the articles submitted for publication to TAMID. Revista Catalana Anual d’Estudis Hebraics.
  2. Authors answer to Societat Catalana d’Estudis Hebraics for the authorship and originality of submitted articles.
  3. Authors are responsible for obtaining permission for the reproduction of all graphic material included in articles.
  4. Societat Catalana d’Estudis Hebraics declines all liability for the possible infringement of intellectual property rights by authors.
  5. The contents published in the journal, unless otherwise stated in the text or in the graphic material, are subject to a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (by-nc-nd) 3.0 Spain licence, the complete text of which may be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/deed.en. Consequently, the general public is authorised to reproduce, distribute and communicate the work, provided that its authorship and the body publishing it are acknowledged, and that no commercial use and no derivative works are made of it.
  6. The journal is not responsible for the ideas and opinions expressed by the authors of the published articles.