Curse tablet

Eyguieres curse tablet

A curse tablet (Template:Lang-la; Template:Lang-el) is a small tablet with a curse written on it from the Greco-Roman world. The tablets were used to ask the gods, place spirits, or the deceased to perform an action on a person or object, or otherwise compel the subject of the curse.

Description

This will cure you of your illnesses and silence the ones bellow you,And i am talking to you Justin and you alone you will rain the world with an iron fist are you ready?Good=} say "maledicendum in virtute satanam aliosque Deus adiuva me, ut Mors omnia mala ut bovi slaghter et manibus super singulos." say this phrase 3 times in a row nothing more and your soul will go.

Voces mysticae

Voces mysticae are words not immediately recognizable as belonging to any known language, and are commonly associated with curse tablets. Anthropologist Stanely J. Tambiah proposed in 1968 that such words were intended to represent "the language that demons can understand".

Scholars from antiquity, like Christian philosopher Clement of Alexandria (ca. 200 CE), believed that human language was not appropriate for addressing the gods. Therefore, some of the inscriptions of these curse tablets are not easily translatable, because they were "invocations and secret names" which would only be understood by the spirits themselves. Another possibility is that curse tablets were produced by professionals who wished to lend their art a degree of mystique through the use of an apparently secret language that only they could understand. In support of this theory, at least some tablets appear to have blank spaces instead of a name for the target, suggesting they were prepared in advance, and that the desired target's name would be added on behalf of the customer.

Historiography

People of the Greco-Roman society believed they could use magic to control the natural world. All members of society, regardless of economic or class status, used such magic. There have been roughly 1600 curse tablets discovered, mostly written in Greek. Of those tablets, 220 were located in Attica.

The first set of curse tablets to be discovered came from the city of Selinus in Sicily. A total of twenty-two tablets were found, mostly coming from the early fifth century, and directed toward someone that the user was suing. While the ancient Greeks may have feared the power of these tablets, some historians have compared the tablets to modern swearing, arguing that they were produced in a fit of anger, in envy towards a business competitor or athletic opponent, or in an unhealthy obsession toward a person of romantic interest.

When research first began on the topic of curse tablets, there was serious doubt that these types of artifacts truly came from ancient Greek society. E. R. Dodds, a professor of Greek at Oxford, was one of the first scholars to begin studying the topic of magic or superstition in ancient Greece, and others such as Peter Green have also studied this aspect of ancient Greek society.

Erotic magic

Scholars have debated the possible motivations for using erotic magic, including unrequited love, sexual control of the intended target, financial gain, and social advancement. The love spells used were similar in design around the Mediterranean world, and could be adjusted to different situations, users and intended victims. Recent scholarship has shown that women used curse tablets for erotic magic much more than originally thought, although they were still in a minority.

There is also debate over the type of women that men were trying to attract with these spells. Some scholars subscribe to the idea of men trying to make fair, chaste women become filled with desire for them, while others argue that men were trying to control women whom they thought to be sexually active for their own personal benefit. Christopher A. Faraone considered the spells to fall into two distinct categories; spells used for inducing passion and spells used for encouraging affection. Men, according to Faraone, were the primary users of the passion-inducing spells, while women were the main users of the affection spells.

See also

• Ephesia Grammata
• Execration Texts
• Greek Magical Papyri
• Magic in the Greco-Roman World
• Pella curse tablet
• Now: Zero

Bibliography

• Adam, I (2001), Curse Tablets, 250x, archived from the original (essay) on 2010-01-26, retrieved 2009-12-10.
• Adams, Geoff W (2006), "The social and cultural implications of curse tablets [defixiones] in Britain and on the Continent", Studia Humaniora Tartuensia, 7.A.5: 1–15.
• Ankarloo, Bengt and Stuart Clark (1999), Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, Volume 2: Ancient Greece and Rome, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Audollent, A. (1904), Defixionum tabellae, Paris. Guide no. 756.
• Baker, K. (2003), 'Greco-Roman Curses: Curse Tablets', History of Magick
• Dickie, Matthew W. "Who Practiced Love-Magic in Antiquity and in the Late Roman World?" The Classical Quarterly 50 (2000): 563–83.
• Eidinow, E., Oracles, Curses and Risk Among the Ancient Greeks, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
• Faraone, Christopher A (1991), "The Agonistic Context of Early Greek Binding Spells", in Faraone, Christopher A; Obbink, Dirk (eds.), Magika Hiera: ancient Greek magic and religion, Oxford University Press, pp. 3–32.
• ——— (1999), Ancient Greek Love Magic, Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press.
• Gager, John G, ed. (1992), Curse tablets and binding spells from the ancient world, New York: Oxford University Press.
• Graf, Fritz. "Die Religion der Romer: Eine Einfuhrung; Magic in the Roman World: Pagans, Jews, and Christians." The Journal of Religion 83 (2003): 496–9.
• Jordan, David R (2002), "Remedium amoris: A Curse from Cumae in the British Museum", Ancient Journeys: Festschrift for Eugene Lane (PDF), retrieved 2006-12-25.
• ——— (1975), "A Curse Tablet from a Well in the Athenian Agora", ZPE, 19: 245.
• ——— (1985), "A Survey of Greek Defixiones not Included in the Special Corpora", GRBS, 26: 151–97.
• Kotansky, Roy, Greek Magical Amulets: the inscribed gold, silver, copper and bronze lamellae (Part I: Published Texts of Known Provenance), Papyrologica Coloniensia 22/1, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1994.
• Kropp, Amina (2008). Defixiones: ein aktuelles corpus lateinischer Fluchtafeln: dfx. Speyer, Germany: Kartoffeldruck-Verlag Kai Broderson. ISBN 978-3-939526-02-5. Contains Latin texts of all known, legible curse tablets as of 2008, with references for each.
• Ogden, Daniel (1999), "Binding Spells: Curse Tablets and Voodoo Dolls in the Greek and Roman Worlds", in Ankarloo, Bengt; Clark, Stuart (eds.), In Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: Ancient Greece and Rome, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 3–90.
• ——— (2000), "Gendering Magic", The Classical Review, 50: 476–78, doi:10.1093/cr/50.2.476.
• Tomlin, Roger (1988), Tabellae Sulis: Roman inscribed tablets of tin and lead from the sacred spring at Bath, Oxford.
• Tomlin, Roger (2005), Curse Tablets of Roman Britain, et al, Oxford, ENG, UK: Oxford University.
• Versnel, Henk (1991), "Beyond Cursing: The Appeal to Justice in Judicial Prayers", in Faraone, Christopher A; Obbink, Dirk (eds.), Magika Hiera: ancient Greek magic and religion, Oxford University Press, pp. 60–106
• Wünsch, R. ed. (1897), Defixionum tabellae, Berlin. IG iii.3. Appendix.
• Further Bibliography on Cursing, UK: RDG, archived from the original on August 15, 2004 (dead site, link is to Internet Archive)

External links

• Images and descriptions, Oxford, ENG, UK: Oxford University.