VICTORIA-FORTUNA INTAGLIO INSCRIBED “ZOH” FROM CAPIDAVA (SCYTHIA) IN ITS ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTEXT
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14795/jaha.12.4.2025.1350Keywords:
Capidava, Late Antiquity, inscribed carnelian intaglio, iconography of Victoria-Nike and Fortuna-Tyche, ZOH / “ζωή”/ ” ζώῃ”Abstract
Abstract. – The 2015 rescue excavation in the area of the only Christian cult building intra muros, at the edges of the Late Roman fort Capidava (Topalu, Constanța County, Romania) brought to light an carnelian intaglio showing Victoria-Nike crowning Fortuna-Tyche, bearing the inscription ZOH, ”life”, or perhaps ”may he/she live”, found in the destruction level of a building predating the Christian monument. We discuss the archaeological, stratigraphic, epigraphic, and iconographic implications of this unique gem from a military settlement on the Danube frontier, buried close to the middle of the 4th century AD. The gem is exceptional in being one of the very few discovered in a stratigraphic excavation and the only one to associate, by means of an inscription, Fortuna and Victoria with the rhetoric of „life”, at the crossroads between propaganda, pagan piety and Christian devotion.
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