1885 Amulet De Sfax ENGLISH

Bulletin of the Academy of Hippone Bone, 1885 NOTE ON THE AMULET DE SFAX Called GUERMIDE amongst the Arabs. In the Bulletin of the Academy of Hippone, nº 18, R.P. DELATRE, missionary from Algiers in the chapel of St-Louis of Carthage (Tunisia), gave the description of a medal that the Arabs call Guermide and which is sold in Sfax and in the surroundings of this city. He regards it as an imitation of the gold currency of Venice and he reads one side: OVCMEl IDOFNOCEN and the other: DIOSIMIVOC ANEOATOV He does not appear to have tried hard to make the translation of these characters, because he declares surely that they are laid out in an unintelligible manner and that it is easy to see that someone wanted to ridicule the pious subject of the currency of Venice. This medal, which was used as an amulet, offers, indeed, a coarsely made representation of the two subjects which are reproduced on the gold ducats of Venice that one designates with the name of sequins; but, in our opinion, there is nothing in this reproduction to lead us to suppose that mockery is intended. Mr. CAGNAT understands it thus and he thinks that the manufacturers of the amulets or talismans, called guermides , would have been poorly educated people to ridicule the currency of the Doges; that consequently, this copy of the sequins of Venice is p251 no more a mockery than 30 cent tie-pins, imitating upright in the middle of an ellipsoid of stars; there are sixteen of them like the sequin of Venice. Of the another side of the medal [vote] two formless figures laid out of the same manner as those of the Venetian currency and which represent the kneeling doge receiving the banner from the hands of St-Marc, patron of the Republic. The gold ducats of Venice were a dependable currency of good quality and very widespread throughout all the the East; this is what explains the vogue that they had starting from the 13th century, as well as the many imitations that were made of it by various princes and various states. Mr. P. LAMBROS, in an article that he published in the Revue de Numismatique française (Journal of French Numismatics), informs us that the Gattulisii in Metelin, the Justiniani in Chio, and the Génois in Pera, copied the Venetian sequins accurately. The Grand-Masters of St-John of Jerusalem, established in Rhodes, followed the same example. Dieudonné of Gozon (1346) was the first who put on his currencies the emblem on the right of the ducat of the Doges; Antoine Fluvian (1431) imitated it thoroughly with the name of St-Marc and that of Venice. The Grand-Masters who came then, until Villiers of the Ile-d’ Adam (1521), preserved on their currencies the imitation of the Venetian gold ducats; but after the establishment of the knights of the order in the Island of Malta (1530), Jean de Lavalette Parisot carefully reformed the currency and struck new coins which carried the legend: non oes scd fides (1557). After those precedents, there is no reason to be very astonished by the manufacturers of amulets also wanting to imitate the emblem of the gold currency of Venice which, because of its religious character, seems very suuitable to be reproduced on a medal being used as talisman. With regard to the legends, we do not want to suppose for a moment that groups of characters were thus engraved without any meaning, because it would have to be admitted that the manufacturer wanted to impose some on the populations in their selling amulets written, but not meaning anything at all. The same man could not be at the same time both malicious and deprived at this point of judgement and of intelligence. We were able to examine four copper specimens of this amulet and we noted that p252 they differ considerably with regard to the module, the shape of the letters, the quality of metal employed. There is, undoubtedly, enough evidence that these various types do not come from the same workshop and that they could not have been manufactured at the same time. This explanation seems sufficient, we think, to wipe away the last traces of the charge of mockery made on the manufacturers and the people who made use of this talisman. It is undeniable, moreover, that medal-makers living in distinct countries, perhaps extremely far from each other, and living at different times, could intend to make fun of St-Marc. The amulet known as guermîde is always provided with an attachment in the form of a ring to allow to be suspended from the neck. The inscription of the legends is made mainly in Greek characters; hence it is in this language that we sought the significance of the formulas. The letters are regular, but are oddly laid out: some are lying on the side; others are inverted; one also observes Roman characters; the C consistently replaces the Σ. The words are very badly spelled and one can note many abbreviations. We will thus not exaggerate by saying that the manufacturer of these talismans intentionally wanted to make the legends enigmatic for his contemporaries, for us there must be a stronger reason, and there is no place to be astonished if our learned epigraphists hesitated until now to make a translation of it. This same reason could lead us to be taxed with great temerity, and this prospect, if it does not discourage us, is not likely however to encourage us to present the interpretation which we have made. What it is, we will unveil as follows: On the right one reads: VCOV I E MR. HCVO IDORNOCEN, and on the obverse: DIOESIMIVOC ANIVEOATOV. To better facilitate this reading, we will separate the words in this manner: VCOV IEM HCV OI DO r NOCEN DIO ESI MINOC ANIV EOATOV. p253 -YCOV. - The word YCOV which is at the top of the medal, between the two figures, appears to be an apocope [ed. where the last syllable is dropped] of and , and this assumption is supported, since on one of the specimens, this word seems to start with IAC. We already said that C equals Σ. It is obvious that it is the name of Jesus there, in the sense of: I am Jesus, implied , I am. IEM. - Word IEM of the beginning of the circular legend, on the left, is, undoubtedly, for , the first person singular present of the verb , and results in: I send, I get. HΣY. - There We have undoubtedly an abbreviation of , , meaning: calm, peace, relief, reduction in pain, suffering. This word must be employed here with the the singular accusative. 0I. - Nominatif masculine plural of , who, which, of which. This is obviously a relative which makes one suppose, necessarily, an implied antecedent; we will suppose that this is , and we will have consequently, with the plural dative , that is to say: , to those who. ∆OΓ. - This is clearly an abbreviation of the verb , and must be intended in the 3rd person of the present plural: . This verb is rendered in [English] as: to test, experience. NOCEN. - Is evidently for , the accusative singular of , meaning disease, physical or moral suffering; could still translate to: plague, curse, calamity. The full construction of this first formula would be, in our opinion, the following one: and will translate we it as follows: I am Jesus, I bring relief to those who are suffering . DIO. - The first word that one reads on the other face of the medal is DIO, probably for , which indicates divinité and which also wants to say: divine, majestic. ESI. - The word which comes next is ESI, mis-spelled and which we will read , third person present singular of the verb , meaning to send, get, give, make leave. MIVOC. - Is undoubtedly for or . This word must be taken here in the accusative: , and means: force, strength, courage; It is a contraction of a name. Someone may want to point out to us that MIVOC should be read as MIUOS. But this last reading that we would have liked to adopt, does not make any sense. Undoubtedly V is not the same as the Υ (upsilon), this character is elongated a little in shape; but if one goes back to a few centuries before Christ., that is to say the time when the Greeks made use of the éolo-doriens characters to write their epitaphs and their numismatics legends, one finds in their alphabet the letters Y and V employed to render the sound of w (orig. ou , (Fr.)] and y. Such as it is, we prefer to suppose, for the interpretation which occupies us in this moment, that a v with two posts has been plainly engraved at your base for a v (‘nu’) with the writing that one calls cast [ed. embossed ]. For the rest, v (‘nu’) and v can easily be confused because of their resemblance and one finds examples of this confusion in the old manuscripts where one reads : for (city), for (name of man). ANIV - It is probable that this word is for , the dative plural of , which comes from the verb , meaning: to soften, to weaken, to slacken, and whose derivatives are: (incurable), , without remedy; is composed of av , indicating deprivation, absence, and of , to cure. It is therefore in the sense of: who cannot be cured. EOATOV. - This word must be regarded as a contraction of , which is employed in the plural for , meaning: one and another, one of the others, and by extension: whatever they are; This is obviously a plural dative, it agrees with .

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