What can we learn about religious practices in the ancient Mediterranean through new translations of textual amulets?
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.
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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At this conference, a group of international scholars will explore 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.
At this conference, a group of international scholars will explore the relationship between text and image on a set of ancient amulets.
