Amulet

Abstract: Objects, like people, have social histories In early Anglo-Saxon graves, there is evidence of the occasional re-use of Roman objects, which were probably discovered on nearby abandoned Roman settlements, while disturbing old graves or when uncovering hoards To date, studies of this re-use have emphasised either its practical aspects or its magical significance This paper develops on these interpretations, stressing the importance of old objects used for their practical and magical values in strategies of mortuary remembrance for early Anglo-Saxon communities In particular it is argued that the very lack of a known history or biography may have contributed to the meaning these Roman objects held in early medieval societies

Abstract: This article traces the stories of a group of amulets and charms from the early 20th century that were gathered together from different locations in Britain by the folklorist Edward Lovett. Through the sale of these objects, Lovett fostered a close working relationship with staff at the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum. In the museum, the amulets and charms were displayed as ‘scientific’ specimens as part of an attempt to trace the ‘history of medicine and mankind’. However, drawing on recent work reappraising the relationships between magic, authority and modernity, and, by recognizing the magical qualities of the objects involved, it is argued that these objects retained the potential to enchant, haunting the space of the museum and disrupting the narratives of evolution and progress presented in this context. A study of the amulets' lives beyond the locus of the museum also sheds light on the potential agency of such objects and the spatialities of magical materialities in an era of modernity.

Abstract: The notion that the mezuzah – the capsule containing a parchment strip on which is written Deut 6:4-9 and 11:13-21 and which is attached to the doorposts of a Jewish home – is protective has been explained in different ways. Two different developments have been suggested: either the mezuzah was originally an amulet, which the rabbis sought to theologize, or it was a religious object which fell victim to popular superstitious notions. In this paper, where the study is delimited to the Talmudic and some Geonic material, I intend to propose another explanation to the origin and development of the idea of its protectiveness. The origin of the mezuzah as an object is obscure. The oldest references we have to it, e.g. in the Mishnah and the Tosefta, presuppose that it is an object on par with other religious objects, and that the affixing of the mezuzah is a mitzvah. To conclude that traditions found in later texts, regarding it as an amulet, are pre-Rabbinic and preserved unaffected by the Rabbinic mediation, is problematic. Discerning a popular influence, that is, a popular strata in the Talmudin, the She’iltot, Sefer Halakhot Gedolot and the Hekhalot literature, opposed to the views of the Rabbinic elite, is also difficult.

Abstract: Preface 1. Interrogating the Magic-Gender Connection - Kimberly B. Stratton Part I. Fiction and Fantasy: Gendering Magic in Literature 2. From Goddess to Hag: The Greek and the Roman Witch in Classical Literature - Barbette Stanley Spaeth 3. "The Most Worthy of Women is a Mistress of Magic": Women as Witches and Ritual Practitioners in 1 Enoch and Rabbinic Sources - Rebecca Lesses 4. Gendering Heavenly Secrets? Women, Angels, and the Problem of Misogyny and "Magic" - Annette Yoshiko Reed 5. Magic, Abjection, and Gender in Roman Literature - Kimberly B. Stratton Part II. Gender and Magic Discourse in Practice 6. Magic Accusations Against Women in Tacitus's Annals - Elizabeth Ann Pollard 7. Drunken Hags with Amulets and Prostitutes with Erotic Spells: The Re-Feminization of Magic in Late Antique Christian Homilies - Dayna S. Kalleres 8. The Bishop, the Pope, and the Prophetess: Rival Ritual Experts in Third-Century Cappadocia - Ayse Tuzlak 9. Living Images of the Divine: Female Theurgists in Late Antiquity - Nicola Denzey Lewis 10. Sorceresses and Sorcerers in Early Christian Tours of Hell - Kirsti Barrett Copeland Part III. Gender, Magic, and the Material Record 11. The Social Context of Women's Erotic Magic in Antiquity - David Frankfurter 12. Cheating Women: Curse Tablets and Roman Wives - Pauline Ripat 13. Saffron, Spices, and Sorceresses: Magic Bowls and the Bavli - Yaakov Elman 14. Victimology or: How to Deal With Untimely Death - Fritz Graf 15. A Gospel Amulet for Joannia (P.Oxy. VIII 1151) - AnneMarie Luijendijk