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Acta Classica Universitatis Scientiarum Debreceniensis ACTA CLASSICA UNIVERSITATIS SCIENTIARUM DEBRECENIENSIS TOMUS XLVII 2011 DEBRECINI 2011 redigunt THOMAS GESZTELYI et GEORGIUS NÉMETH adiuvante CSILLA SZEKERES Concilium redactorum NEIL ADKIN, GEYZA ALFÖLDY, LADISLAUS HAVAS, THOMAS KÖVES-ZULAUF, IOHANNES PISO, SUSANNA VÁRHELYI Commentarii eduntur sumptibus auctoritateque Universitatis Debreceniensis, administrantur in aedibus universitatis H-4010 Debrecen, Pf. 51. (Hungaria) The work is supported by the TÁMOP 4.2.1./B-09/1/KONV-2010-0007 project. The project is implemented through the New Hungary Development Plan, co-financed by the European Social Fund and the European Regional Development Fund. PARS PRIOR Applied magic in the antiquity ACTA CLASSICA XLVII. 2011. UNIV. SCIENT. DEBRECEN. p. 7–8. PARALLEL RESEARCH TABULAE DEFIXIONIS AND MAGIC GEMS Curses on lead tablets (tabulae defixionis) and carved gemstones carried as talismans (so-called magic gems) are of prominent importance in the field of ancient magic. Both object groups are well-represented in Hungary either by local excavations or by purchase, while the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts houses a magical papyrus, a single representative of the third significant group of sources for ancient magic in the country. The research on gems and defix- iones places our finds into a wider international framework that facilitates a more profound interpretation.1 The research programme called Parallel research in the field of ancient magic is special since it does not examine these two groups of sources sepa- rately, as it has been customary in the international practice, but analyzes the two of them together, drawing attention to parallel phenomena. We look for par- allelisms primarily in the realia in terms of chronology, circulation, and work- shops (officinae magicae). A first complete collection and typology of magic signs (so-called charakteres) found in defixiones, gems, and papyri are to be made available in an online database of charakteres. The work is overseen by Kirsten Dzwiza in conformity with the framework of the research programme. With the support of the research programme, we have organized two in- ternational conferences in 2010 and 2011. The first one (CHARAKTER: An In- ternational Seminary on Magical Signs in Antiquity) was held on 24 September 2010 at the Department of Ancient History of ELTE University, Budapest. The following papers were read out: Kirsten Dzwiza (Germany): Neue Erkenntnisse zu den Objekten des “Pergamon-Kits“ Gideon Bohak (Tel Aviv): The CharaktÅres in Jewish Magic, from Late Antiquity to the Mid- dle Ages Árpád Nagy (Budapest): Über die Interpretation der CharaktÅres auf Zaubergemmen György Németh (Budapest): Ein magischer Satz. Über DT 276–283 András Bácskay (Budapest): Magic-religious Symbols in ancient Mesopotamia Sándor Fodor (Budapest): ‘Charakters’ in Arabic Magic 1 The research is supported by the K 81332 programme of OTKA (Hungarian Research Found). Participants of the programme are György Németh and Árpád Nagy. 7 Benedek Láng (Budapest): CharactÅrs and Magic Signs in the Picatrix and other Medieval Magic Texts The second conference (Magical Context)2 was held on 15 April 2011, also at the Department of Ancient History of ELTE University, Budapest. The lectures of the conference: Richard Gordon (Universität Erfurt): Fixing the race: charioteers and magic at Carthage and Hadrumetum György Németh (ELTE, Budapest): Sequences of charakteres from Hadrumetum Celia Sanchez (Universidad de Zaragoza – Università degli Studi di Verona): Writing a de- fixio: an overview on materials suitables for cursing. Marina Piranomonte (Soprintendenza Speciale per I Beni archeologici di Roma): “Idibus est Annae festum geniale Perennae.” The fountain of Anna Perenna in Rome Francisco Marco Simón (Universidad de Zaragoza): Duogena, a new Celtic deity documented in Lugo (Lucus Augusti) Silvia Alfayé (Universidad de Zaragoza): Resting in peace? An approach to ancient ghost- banning (on Pseudo-Quintilian’s Sepulchrum incantatum) Gonzalo Fontana (Universidad de Zaragoza): „Gift of tongues”: a magical phenomenon in a Christian liturgical setting Andrea Barta (Budapest): A New Lead Tablet from Savaria Gábor Lassányi (Aquincum Múzeum, Budapest): The old man with seven heads – remains of an obscure Roman Period ritual in Aquincum Antón Alvar Nuño (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid): Apotropaic magic in the Roman house. Some social aspects We can read the papers of the lecturers of these two conferences in the volume of 2011 in Acta Classica. The detailed programmes of the conferences are re- viewed here, because the following papers are not always the written versions of the given lectures, and since some manuscripts have not arrived until the editor’s deadline, not all papers are included. We hope that this volume will be instrumental for scholars of ancient magic in the future. György Németh 2 Besides OTKA (Hungarian Research Fund), the Spanish FFI 2008 – 01511 / FISO research programme also sponsored this conference. 8 25 ACTA CLASSICA XLVII. 2011. UNIV. SCIENT. DEBRECEN. p. 25–44. THE CHARAKTÊRES IN ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL JEWISH MAGIC BY GIDEON BOHAK Abstract: This paper examines the different magical signs found in Jewish magical texts and artifacts in Antiquity and the Middle Ages. These include especially the Graeco-Egyptian “cha- raktêres” (ring-letters, Brillenbuchstaben), the Arabic “string letters” (or Siegel), and the Latin sigilla or figurae, to which one may add a few other types of magical signs. This paper surveys their appearance in Jewish magical texts of different times and places, and analyzes their function within the magical texts where they are found. Keywords: Charaktêres, magical signs, Jews, Late Antiquity, Middle Ages. The use of special signs is one of the hallmarks of magical texts and objects of many different cultures, and the Jewish magical tradition is no exception.1 Un- fortunately, this aspect of Jewish magic has not yet received the attention it deserves, and no attempt has ever been made to survey the magical signs found in Jewish magical texts of different periods, or reconstruct their transmission history.2 Moreover, in many discussions of Jewish magic these signs often are referred to as “Kabbalistic signs,” even though they are mostly non-Jewish in origins, and predate the rise of Kabbalah by a full millennium. In the present study, I wish to present both a basic typology of the special signs found in Jew- ish magical texts in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and a brief historical sur- vey of their different forms and functions. I begin with a few words on magical signs in general, and with a basic typology of the magical signs used by Jews, and move on to a chronological and geographical survey of the Jewish magical texts and the special signs they display. My aim is both to see what kinds of magical signs appear in different Jewish magical texts and to see what function they fill within these texts. 1 The research for this paper was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant No. 635/08). 2 For earlier studies, all of them very brief, see Gaster 1913; Trachtenberg 1939, 140-142; Weinstock 1981; Schiffman and Swartz 1992, 44-45; Swartz 2005, 195, 198. 25 A) Magical Signs in the Jewish Magical Tradition – A Typological Survey: One important aspect of the Jewish magical tradition is that at least from Late Antiquity onwards it displayed a predominantly scribal nature, including the production of written magical texts – amulets, curses, love spells, dream requests, and so on – and the transmission of the magical know-how in written manuals or books of magic.3 This feature of Jewish magic enabled the prolif- eration of magical signs and – given the magicians’ attempts to enact and to copy their recipes as accurately as possible – assured the relative stability of their transmission. Thus, when we look at a Jewish magical text of the fifth century CE, and at a Jewish magical text a millennium and a half younger, we often find similar magical signs in both texts, in spite of the great chronologi- cal, and often also geographical, gap separating between them. As a rule, I would define a magical sign as any sign which looks more or less like an alphabetic sign or a simple ideogram, but which does not belong to any of the alphabets used in that specific magical text, or to any known system of meaningful symbols. This means that in my search for magical signs in the Jewish magical tradition I exclude all images (of humans, animals, demons, etc.) which might appear in Jewish magical texts, because I do not consider them to be magical signs.4 Similarly, I exclude the word-triangles, alphabetic magic squares, and other uses of names, words and letters to create unusual shapes (what is known in other contexts as “technopaignia”), as these involve no special magical signs, only the regular letters of one’s alphabet.5 I also ex- clude all the non-alphabetic signs which form a part of any non-magical text, such as signs of vocalization in Hebrew and Aramaic texts (from the Early Middle Ages onwards), or punctuation marks that may be found in texts of all languages and periods, or lines, frames, and other methods of highlighting parts of the text, as these do not usually belong specifically in the realm of “magic”. I also exclude all known astrological, alchemical, and geomantic signs, as they belong within their specific spheres of knowledge, are usually transmitted in genre-specific texts, and tend to have a fixed, and well-known, meaning. Fi- nally, I exclude any cipher signs whose meanings clearly were known to the producer of the magical text in which they appear, as these have to do more with cryptography than with magic, and I also exclude those “texts” that consist of repetitive meaningless squiggles, which may have been intended to fool ig- 3 See Swartz 1990; Bohak 2008, esp. 281-285. 4 For an excellent study of the iconography of ancient Jewish magic see Vilozny 2010.
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