Along the eastern Adriatic coast, there are several places with documented historic Jewish presence, particularly Solin (ancient Salona), which is logical, as it was the capital city of the Ro a province of Dalmatia and the most important market town and the biggest port in this part of the Empire. Found in Salona, and now kept in the Archaeological Museum in Split, were oil lamps with a depiction of a menorah (a Jewish seven-branched candelabrum), amulets of yellowish glass and bronze with Jewish symbols, and an inscription. The same museum holds a fragment of a sarcophagus with a menorah in bas relief, found outside the city walls, close to the Church of Our Lady of the Island. The inscription mentioning inhabitants of the Jewish faith suggests the existence of a Salonitan Jewish community. t is reasonable to assume that after the fall of Salona in the 7th century the Jews would have fled the ravaged city with the other refugees and sought refuge on the nearby islands and within the walls of Diocletian’s Palace.
