Small lead tablets inscribed primarily in Greek or Latin with private curses against rivals or wrongdoers reveal a darker side of ancient life that is often hidden from us in our sources for ancient history. This project aimed at a more intensive and contextualized study of these texts found throughout the Mediterranean basin and beyond. In the past these texts have generally been studied as a unified epigraphic corpus with little emphasis on the local context of their deposit in tombs, sanctuaries, and bodies of water, or on the local features of dialect and paleography. Recently excavated hoards from Greece, Italy, and Roman Germany allow us new opportunities to study these curses as material objects in their specific archeological and historical contexts. This project required a combination of technical skills: restoration, imaging, paleography, archaeology, and historical and religious studies. A series of four international conferences provided a platform for discussing and generating new editions of texts and collected volumes of essays focused on important aspects never considered in the past.
Edward Olson Professor of Classics in the Department of Classics and the College
University of Chicago
Christopher Faraone’s research interests focus on Ancient Greek poetry, religion and magic. His recent works include Vanishing Acts: Deletio Morbi as Speech Act and Visual Design on Ancient Greek Amulets, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies Supplement 115 (London 2013) and...
Honorary Professor of Ancient Religions
University of Erfurt
Richard Gordon has been Honorary Professor of the Religions of Antiquity at the University of Erfurt since 2007. To learn more about his research and publications, please see his profile page at the University of Erfurt.
Postdoctoral Fellow
University of Zaragoza
Celia Sánchez Natalías is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Zaragoza. Her interests include Graeco-Roman religion, curse tablets, Latin paleography, and the archaeology of ritual and magic.
For more details on her research and publications, please visit her profile page at Academia.edu.
Professor of Classics and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
University of Chicago
Since 2002, Sofía Torallas Tovar has been the curator of the Papyrological collections at the Abadia de Montserrat and directs the research conducted by the CSIC and Universitat Pompeu Fabra at the Abbey (http://dvctvs.upf.edu). She participates in...
Carousel with 3 slides shown at a time. Use the Previous and Next buttons to navigate, or the slide dot buttons at the end to jump to slides.
Reading list for the Curses in Context research project at the Neubauer Collegium
This was the fourth in a series of conferences dedicated to the local and material contexts of curses – usually inscribed on lead tablets – that have an enduring legacy in the ancient...
Carousel with 3 slides shown at a time. Use the Previous and Next buttons to navigate, or the slide dot buttons at the end to jump to slides.
Reading list for the Curses in Context research project at the Neubauer Collegium
Carousel with 3 slides shown at a time. Use the Previous and Next buttons to navigate, or the slide dot buttons at the end to jump to slides.
This was the fourth in a series of conferences dedicated to the local and material contexts of curses – usually inscribed on lead tablets – that have an enduring legacy in the ancient...
