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Research Project

Textual Amulets of the Mediterranean World: 1000 BCE-1000 CE

2023 – 2024

Key Question

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.

Research Team

Christopher Faraone

Christopher Faraone

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 The Getty ...

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

Carolina López-Ruiz specializes in Greek and Near Eastern mythology and religion, and also on the Phoenician-Punic world. Her books include When the Gods Were Born: Greek Cosmogonies and the Near East (2010), Gods, Heroes, and Monsters: A Sourcebook of Greek, Roman, and Near Eastern Myths in ...

Sofía Torallas Tovar

Sofía Torallas Tovar

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 international projects concerned with the editing ...

Joseph Sanzo

Joseph Sanzo

Associate Professor of the History of Religions

Ca' Foscari University of Venice

Joseph Sanzo is an Associate Professor of the History of Religions and Director of the Center for the Study of Lived Religion at Ca' Foscari University of Venice. His research interests include ancient Mediterranean religion, with a particular focus on ritual practices during late antiquity. He is ...

Rivka Elitzur-Leiman

Rivka Elitzur-Leiman

Postdoctoral Affiliate in the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies

NYU, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia

Rivka Elitzur-Leiman is a researcher of ancient Jewish magic and an epigraphist interested especially in material culture. Her research collaboration at the Neubauer Collegium focuses on visuality and materiality in Ancient Jewish amulets. Elitzur-Leiman wrote her PhD thesis at Tel Aviv University ...

Project Narrative

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