Bilingual capital

Small capital with morphology inspired by the classical Composite order; cylindrical and basket shaped, with an astragal decorated with a wreathed motif, the lower part of the echinus shows a string of parallel schematic leaves overlaid with a Hebrew inscription. Halfway up there is a string of pine cones intertwined like a garland, upon which there are inscriptions in Arabic on each of the four faces of the capital. The scrolls are formed by the twisted tails of a reptilian species. The abacus is decorated with plant and geometric elements, and there is a console at the centre of each side, three of which have geometric shapes and the fourth depicting a quadruped. The piece is doubly remarkable based on its iconography, which has no known equivalent, as well as due to its bilingual nature. Material expressions of the Iberian Peninsula’s Hispano-Jewish population make up an essential part of the socio-cultural diversity of the Hispanic Middle Ages.