Christopher Faraone
Christopher Faraone
Edward Olson Professor of Classics in the Department of Classics and the College
University of Chicago
Research Project
Textual Amulets of the Mediterranean World: 1000 BCE-1000 CE
Project Team:
2023 – 2024
Key Question
What can we learn about religious practices in the ancient Mediterranean through new translations of textual amulets?
Project Summary
An international group of scholars will produce a corpus of translations of the most important and best-preserved textual amulets of the Mediterranean, as well as drawings and recipes for them. The team plans to arrange the corpus chronologically so that historical trends can be easily traced.
For over two thousand years, people in pre-modern cultures wore objects on their bodies as amulets, initially things they found in the natural world, and then man-made items, eventually carrying a protective text. The last-named, which we will refer to as “textual amulets,” appear in different languages and cultures: Egyptian, Greek, and Latin, Semitic languages, etc, which have been generally studied in isolation. There is increasing interest in comparing these traditions and exploring their ties and interferences. Our project aims to assemble a team to produce a selective corpus of translations of the most important and best-preserved textual amulets of the Mediterranean, as well as drawings and recipes for them. We plan to arrange the corpus of textual amulets chronologically so that historical trends can be easily traced, and, where enough evidence survives, also by genre and region within these historical periods.
Topics
Research Team
Carolina López-Ruiz
Carolina López-Ruiz
Professor of Ancient Mediterranean Religions and Mythologies in the Divinity School, the Department of Classics and the College
University of Chicago
Sofía Torallas Tovar
Sofía Torallas Tovar
Professor of Classics and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
University of Chicago
Joseph Sanzo
Rivka Elitzur-Leiman
Rivka Elitzur-Leiman
Postdoctoral Affiliate in the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies
NYU, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia
Project Narrative
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.
Textual Amulets of the Mediterranean World: 1000 BCE - 1000 CE
Conference
Textual Amulets of the Mediterranean World: 1000 BCE - 1000 CE
At this conference, an international group of scholars explored the relationship between text and image on a set of ancient amulets.
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.
Textual Amulets of the Mediterranean World: 1000 BCE - 1000 CE
Conference
Textual Amulets of the Mediterranean World: 1000 BCE - 1000 CE
At this conference, an international group of scholars explored the relationship between text and image on a set of ancient amulets.
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