WEBVTT

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Great.

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Thank you very much.

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Charlotte, the floor is yours.

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Perfect.

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Thank you so much.

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First of all, thank you so
much to the organisers for

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inviting me to be part of
such an interesting conference.

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I am very sorry that I can't be there in
person.

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I do feel like I'm missing out.

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I also start with an admission because I am
not completely geographically illiterate.

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And I am aware that Antioch is not actually
a port itself on the Mediterranean.

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And I think that needs
to be said from the outset,

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particularly given that we're
focusing on coastal settlements.

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But in my mind, Antioch is a really
interesting city because it's sort of...

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it's not like an isolated inland city on a
river.

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It's a political... it's like political
and economic history, I think,

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is inseparable from Seleucia Peria,
which is its harbour on the Mediterranean.

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And Eduardo Garcia Molina has recently
described Antioch.

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And Seleucia as dramatically...
dynamically connected twin foundations

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whose histories cannot be adequately
separated.

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So I'd really like to kind of bring
Antioch into this to offer an opportunity

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to examine religious consequences of
Mediterranean connectivity beyond the kind

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of immediate urban surroundings of a
harbour itself within a major urban centre.

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So as a meeting point
for the gods and people,

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Antioch, I think, really
is a prime example.

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It was founded in 300 AD.

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By Seleucus I Nicator.

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And it's one of... who was one of
Alexander the Great's successors.

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And it was basically the capital of the
Hellenistic Seleucid Empire and continues

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to remain important through the Roman and
into the Byzantine worlds.

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And this is an important point because as
we look at some of my examples,

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you realise that the dating is vague at
best for some of them.

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In the Hellenistic age, the
population was apparently over

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300... over 30,000 people and
had an really interesting mix.

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So we've got Macedonians, Jews,
Indigenous, Syrians, Greek settlers.

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And in the Roman period, Antioch continued
its prominence.

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So its geographic distance from the
troublesome Egypt of the early Roman

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period, I think, really played a part in
this.

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So Julius Caesar visited in 47 BCE.

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It confirmed... he confirmed its status as
a free city.

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He erected... well, no.

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There's debate about this, but I don't
think it was him.

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So there's a temple to Jupiter,
Capitolanus.

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That was erected.

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I think this is likely done under the rule
of Augustus.

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And Strabo writing during the reign of
Augustus and the first years of Tiberius

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informs us that Antioch was not
much smaller than Seleucia and other...

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and Alexandria.

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And Diodorus Siclius in the mid second
century writes that Antioch had a

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population suddenly of 300,000 free
inhabitants.

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So this is a huge kind of melting pot of
people.

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And I think those statistic or
those numbers really illustrate

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that we've got continuous
incoming of people as well.

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So my paper being about Antioch,
but specifically... Oh, here's my maps.

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Sorry.

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So we've got Antioch here on the river.

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This is a really interesting island set
up.

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And then you've got where it is in
relation to this port as well.

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So I'm talking about small inscribed lead
sheets.

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What I refer to as curse
tablets, but you may have

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heard them referred to as
catadesmoe or defixiones.

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And when describing a curse tablet,
I follow David Jordan's downfall.

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He did expand this later in 2000 to
include tablets that aren't just on lead,

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but all the ones from today are lead
tablets.

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So here is a beautiful one from Antioch.

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If you squint, you can see the letters.

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So my argument is that these texts should
not primarily be described as evidence for

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an undifferentiated mixing of religious
elements.

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So I suggest that they could be more
illuminatingly analysed.

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As instances of situational functional
translation.

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So particular texts select and recombine
divine names.

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They use religious narratives.

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They use different languages, different
scripts.

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And different material practices,
so like deposition and things.

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And then use different types of location
for the deposition.

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In response to particular competitive
situations.

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This formulation, I
think, deliberately shifts

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attention away from
attempting the impossible.

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By trying to reconstruct
private religious identities

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of unknown cursed
creators or commissioners.

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Because this debate about
whether we have professionals

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making them is, I
think, really important.

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If we get stuck down the
rabbit hole of thinking about

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what does the person
who is making these believe.

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So for instance, there are Greek texts
which invoke Io, but they do not establish

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for us that the commissioner or the
creator was actually Jewish.

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What the tablets demonstrate more securely
is that particular religious resources,

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have become available for deployment in
ritual contexts.

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Far beyond those from which they
originated.

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So the cursed tablets from Antioch were
excavated in 1934 and 1935.

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During the 1932-1939 excavations.

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Which were undertaken
as part of the international

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committee for the excavation
of Antioch and its vicinity.

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Which was overseen by Princeton
University.

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So in total there are 13 tablets from
public.

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And what is described
in the new edition as

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upscale private house
locations in Antioch.

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And then there are two from the nearby
area of Daphne.

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All of these tablets were written in Greek
except for one which is a circus curse.

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It's number 31 in Daniel and Holman's brand
new 2025 re-edition Magica La Ventina.

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And we will look at that one later.

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It's a circus curse and it's written in an
Aramaic language and script.

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So Daniel and Holman note that,
save for numbers 22, 23 and 24,

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which seem to have been
written by the same person, all

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of the other tablets are
inscribed in different hands.

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And this is an important point as you'll
see because we keep coming round to this

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idea of are they being commissioned or
created?

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So let's turn first to the curses from the
House of the Calendar.

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Four of the tablets come from this
location.

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They come from a well off the southern end
of the Triclinium.

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And the House of the Calendar was in the
north of the city.

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It was a finely decorated house.

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In particular, it has particularly nice
mosaics, including one of the seasons and

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the months, which gives the building its
current name.

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And I can only find quite...

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well, gloomy, to be honest, photos of them
in black and white.

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So three of these tablets, 22,
23, 24, as I've said, were probably

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written by the same person and are dated
to between the 5th and 6th century CE.

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What's really interesting is
that two of these tablets address

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the same or are against the
same victim, a greengracer.

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And another one is against a woodworker.

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But the individuals are very specifically
located.

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Normally in cursed tablets you get,
oh, so and so is born of this mother.

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But these are who the mother is,
what they do, exactly where they live.

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So they're very specifically located in
this very, very nice house.

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There is debate about whether the victims
actually lived in the property.

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This is possible.

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At this point, the elite
housing in Antioch

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started to be divided
up into smaller units.

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And this might end up being somewhere
where they lived and work.

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And we have this expectation of decline
from the 4th century CE.

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What's interesting is that all these
curses are against an artisan class.

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So the fourth tablet is against a baker,
we think.

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So the tablets that are
produced by the same

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person share similarities
when taken together.

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And they demonstrate that there is a
mixing of gods and religious backgrounds

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in Antioch that someone can kind of pick
and choose from.

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So in 23...

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I don't know why I'm doing them in this
order of apologies.

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But in 23, you have Typhon and Abraxas.

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So you start with the Magical Logos at the
top.

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And then it says, I deliver to
you the soul, the power and

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the strength and the might
of Babylus, the greengrocer.

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We go on to claim that his mother has an
impure womb.

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He needs to become ill,
grow weak, abstain from

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food, suffer insomnia,
become disfigured until death.

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So there's obviously
no love lost between the

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creator of this curse
and this greengrocer.

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So Typhon is invoked as being strong and
mighty to bind binders down, bind

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thoroughly and paralyse the body and the
feet of the victim.

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And then we get the fact that we know
exactly which quarter he is dwelling in in

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the city and which portico exactly he is
dwelling by.

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And then we get this like repeated refrain
at the end.

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Now, now, quickly, quickly, which is
something that we find in cursed tablets,

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not just across North Africa and the
Levant, but into Rome as well much earlier.

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So there are elements of
formulae from the cursed tablet

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tradition more broadly, as well
as this kind of slightly unusual.

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Level of specificity about
where the victim can

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be found and this mixing
of deities or powers.

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We have this combination, though,
of this particular Logos found alongside

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Typhon on some of those cursed
tablets from the Athenian Agora,

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which are dated to a couple
of centuries earlier as well.

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So, again, I think we've got this like
mixing of ideas.

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In the next tablet, Tablet
24, there's an invocation

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to a moon goddess who is
identified with Persephone.

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So kind of Selene Persephone, if you will.

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And the following lines demonstrate that
she is also identified with Aphrodite.

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And this goddess is kind of invoked in a
sort of slander magic, which is very

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unusual in Antioch and actually from all
that like Levantine in North African region.

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It's very unusual to find that here.

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So in line six and eight of this text,
it seems that the creator of the tablet is

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trying to suggest that
the victim accused Kronos

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of having polluted the
sea by castrating Uranus.

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Implying that Aphrodite was born in
pollution and thus insulting the goddess,

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which would inspire her to act.

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And then in Tablet 22, there is an example
from the Book of Exodus, the destruction

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of the Pharaoh's cavalry at the Red Sea and
Yahweh's killing of the firstborn in Egypt.

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So despite the fact that these are all
written in the same hand, you've got a

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really big variety of different religious
kind of influences coming through.

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And whether that reflects the
commissioners of the cursed tablets,

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who want something specific to their
beliefs, or whether this is just a case of

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having an extended knowledge that can be
pulled upon.

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What's really interesting is that this
narrative is written in Greek as well.

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I think that's kind of a key moment.

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Even though this is a
Jewish narrative, I don't think

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it permits us to identify
the commissioner as Jewish.

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Indeed, Isabella Sandwell's work on
Antioch reminds us how dangerous it is to

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treat Greek, Jewish and Christian as
self-evidently bounded social categories.

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What the tablet demonstrates
more securely is the portability of

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scriptural precedent and the
divine names that can be invoked.

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However, it has been suggested that these
tablets were written by an author who

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belonged to Antioch's
Aramaic-speaking Jewish

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community, and therefore
had an Aramaic mother tongue.

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Because these three tablets are
described by Duner and Holman

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as crawling with errors,
orthographically and grammarily.

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Papyri that display such
a high density of severe

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mistakes tend to be written
in clumsy block letters.

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However, the hand of the present writer
shows greater practice, and one may thus

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suspect that Greek was
for him a second language

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and that he was more
literate in another language.

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In this case, it may have been his mother
tongue of Aramaic.

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This is a possibility and worth debating,
I think, and talking about later.

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There is a further tablet that may have an
Egyptian origin.

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But for time, we're slipping off.

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Moving on to the Hippodrome tablets.

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So the Hippodrome was built not later than
the first half of the second century CE.

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And it was one of the
biggest in the ancient world

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with a capacity of
approximately 80,000 people.

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Chariot racing created the perfect
conditions for the creation of curse tablets.

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The outcome of the race was uncertain.

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The horses, drivers, factual rivalries,
financial interests were all involved.

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And the turning posts in the middle of the
Hippodrome were particularly dangerous.

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So we have curse tablets against
charioteers from across the Roman world,

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which sought to impede speed, coordination
and control.

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And in Antioch, the
archaeological context makes the

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relationship between ritual and
competition extremely tangible.

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Because tablets that have
been numbered by Daniel and

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Holman to 27 to 31 were all
deposited near a turning post.

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So some were in the drains near the
turning post.

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One explanation for
this was that the drains

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provided a watery
link to the underworld.

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I find this explanation a bit less
satisfactory than the simple idea that the

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drains are extremely close to the most
dangerous point in the race.

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And it's very easy to throw something into
a drain.

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But again, we can debate
this how much ritual

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knowledge is actually
being shared and used.

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The location of the drains does help us
with the dating though.

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The drains were only constructed in the
fourth century.

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So the curse tablets cannot be earlier
than that.

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And then the references to the four
factions on three of the tablets also

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suggest a day between the fourth and sixth
centuries.

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.

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.

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So the most spectacular evidence for
religious repertoire available in this

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competitive environment is tablet number
29.

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And here's the handwriting you can see on
it.

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It's nice and neat.

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And it's dated to the first half of the
fourth century.

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And it's a really long circus curse.

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And here's the text.

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So the text is remarkable for the range of
supernatural names that it mobilizes.

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It begins with divine
names associated with the

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Samothracian mysteries
and other Greek gods.

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Then it turns to Hecate,
Selene, before eventually

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appealing to Io and Sabaoth,
but and angelic powers as well.

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Its targets are 36 horses, which are all
named individually and subjected to

00:14:15.321 --> 00:14:17.840
commands for binding, destruction,
overturning.

00:14:19.360 --> 00:14:22.811
We cannot, I think,
reconstruct a coherent personal

00:14:22.812 --> 00:14:25.800
theology from which all these
beings are somehow fused.

00:14:25.980 --> 00:14:28.800
The successions of divine
names, I think, can instead

00:14:28.801 --> 00:14:31.000
be understood as a
culminative invocation strategy.

00:14:31.001 --> 00:14:35.440
Supernatural authorities, deriving from
several ritual repertoires, are

00:14:35.441 --> 00:14:38.514
successfully brought
to bear upon one tightly

00:14:38.515 --> 00:14:41.160
defined objective, to
defeat the specific forces.

00:14:42.820 --> 00:14:47.180
Christopher Ferroni has examined the
Samothracian material in relation to the

00:14:47.181 --> 00:14:49.080
wider question of mysteries and curse
rituals.

00:14:49.420 --> 00:14:54.360
However, the presence of the names
presented as secret or esoteric does not

00:14:54.361 --> 00:14:57.800
prove that the writer or the commissioner
had been initiated into these mysteries.

00:14:58.120 --> 00:15:00.340
I think a safer conclusion is textual.

00:15:00.440 --> 00:15:00.980
I think a safer conclusion is textual.

00:15:00.981 --> 00:15:03.398
The spell constructs ritual
authority partially through

00:15:03.399 --> 00:15:06.740
the deployment of rare or
privileged divine nomenclature.

00:15:07.420 --> 00:15:09.100
And I think this distinction is important.

00:15:09.300 --> 00:15:11.518
We don't know whether the
person who wanted the horses

00:15:11.519 --> 00:15:13.416
defeated was also the
person who wrote the tablet.

00:15:13.440 --> 00:15:17.940
We don't know whether the scribe copied
the text or composed it based on a model.

00:15:18.080 --> 00:15:22.680
And we cannot assume that invoking a deity
establishes any kind of membership or

00:15:22.681 --> 00:15:25.240
really true detailed awareness of a
deity's cult.

00:15:26.780 --> 00:15:30.900
The work of Daniel and Holman's on a
paleographical level,

00:15:45.360 --> 00:15:49.000
So, we have a central... this is a central
phenomenon.

00:15:49.300 --> 00:15:52.940
This tablet doesn't demonstrate the
disappearance of religious boundaries.

00:15:53.180 --> 00:15:56.008
It demonstrates that divine
names that were associated with

00:15:56.009 --> 00:15:59.140
different traditions could be
assembled within one ritual.

00:16:00.100 --> 00:16:06.140
In contrast with this, we have tablet
number 30, which invokes only angelic names.

00:16:06.300 --> 00:16:09.163
So, it's found in a
similar location, dates to a

00:16:09.164 --> 00:16:11.680
similar point, but only makes
use of one of the powers.

00:16:11.800 --> 00:16:13.800
And this one also has a nice drawing in
the middle.

00:16:16.280 --> 00:16:20.900
Therefore, I think what's really
interesting is that the Antioch kind of

00:16:21.140 --> 00:16:25.639
religious or magical
ritual atmosphere is

00:16:25.640 --> 00:16:29.600
not defined by compulsory
mixing of deities.

00:16:30.920 --> 00:16:35.620
So, I want to turn finally to tablet 31,
which is our Aramaic curse tablet.

00:16:36.800 --> 00:16:40.400
This is the strongest evidence for
linguistic and ritual translation.

00:16:41.260 --> 00:16:48.000
So, it was published in 2023 by Fulmer and
Elisha Lehman, and it was discovered in

00:16:48.001 --> 00:16:51.260
1935, near the first turning post of the
Antioch Hippodrome.

00:16:51.560 --> 00:16:56.020
So, this is important because at this
point, the horses... there are rules about

00:16:56.021 --> 00:16:58.520
when horses and turrets can cut in front
of each other.

00:16:58.640 --> 00:17:01.000
And before this point, it's not
permissible.

00:17:01.560 --> 00:17:05.980
After this point, or shortly before this
point, they're allowed to cross in front

00:17:05.981 --> 00:17:08.878
of each other to get as
close to that central line as

00:17:08.879 --> 00:17:11.720
possible to make it as
short, if you see what I mean.

00:17:11.819 --> 00:17:14.960
Apparently, this is the same in,
like, modern field and track events,

00:17:15.119 --> 00:17:17.400
but I don't run, so I have no idea.

00:17:19.359 --> 00:17:22.579
So, it's dated by the editors to the 5th
or 6th century CE.

00:17:22.780 --> 00:17:25.075
So, again, a similar date to some of the
examples we've seen before.

00:17:25.099 --> 00:17:31.360
It's written entirely in
Jewish-Palestinian Aramaic, and it is the

00:17:31.361 --> 00:17:34.860
only known cursed tablet to be written in
this script at the moment.

00:17:35.820 --> 00:17:39.440
So, it requires us to distinguish between
two kinds of cultural movement.

00:17:40.100 --> 00:17:44.000
We've got cursed tablets against
Babelists, a Greek text which incorporates

00:17:44.001 --> 00:17:48.460
biblical precedents, and then this is a
cursed tablet that has linguistic and

00:17:48.461 --> 00:17:51.660
scriptural register of the curse creation
has changed.

00:17:52.220 --> 00:17:56.380
Yet, its materiality, its competitive
setting, it's all immediately comparable

00:17:56.381 --> 00:18:00.000
with Mediterranean Agnus which is a
classic curse tablet practice.

00:18:01.060 --> 00:18:04.242
It's an inscribed-led
object dedicated against

00:18:04.243 --> 00:18:06.400
competitors it deposited
in the Hippodrome.

00:18:07.620 --> 00:18:10.236
What's really interesting
is that it makes use

00:18:10.237 --> 00:18:13.060
of the same narrative
as we find in Tablet 22.

00:18:13.640 --> 00:18:20.120
So, there are some overlaps to do with
angels obstructing the paths of donkeys.

00:18:21.920 --> 00:18:24.700
So, I think we should draw some
conclusions.

00:18:26.260 --> 00:18:29.660
The tablet is a religious object, but it's
also a religious object in the urban space.

00:18:29.760 --> 00:18:30.796
I think it's really important.

00:18:30.820 --> 00:18:36.140
So, Martin Pitts and Miguel John Verlius
have proposed for the concept of object

00:18:36.141 --> 00:18:38.518
scape for analyzing the
transformative effects

00:18:38.519 --> 00:18:40.460
produced by circulating
material objects.

00:18:40.760 --> 00:18:44.500
Their model was not devised specifically
for these cursed tablets or this place,

00:18:44.660 --> 00:18:47.636
but I think provides a useful
way of asking what a led

00:18:47.637 --> 00:18:50.140
object itself contributed
to religious communication.

00:18:50.900 --> 00:18:54.200
These Antioch tablets were not texts
awaiting modern transcription.

00:18:54.520 --> 00:18:58.200
They were objects made for handling,
concealment, deposition, manipulation,

00:18:58.600 --> 00:19:00.940
and their led surface carried names and
commands.

00:19:01.360 --> 00:19:05.840
Their deposition removed them from
ordinary circulation while placing them

00:19:05.841 --> 00:19:09.600
into potential realms of supernatural
powers, such as wells, drains,

00:19:10.020 --> 00:19:12.843
the vicinity of turning
posts, where there would,

00:19:12.844 --> 00:19:14.724
I think, have been a
sense of the restless dead.

00:19:15.600 --> 00:19:18.880
And this is where their lived ancient
religion approach is particularly productive.

00:19:19.080 --> 00:19:23.620
Rather than being bound by systems called
Greek religion, Judaism, or Christianity,

00:19:23.820 --> 00:19:28.480
and asking how they became mixed,
we can understand that within situated

00:19:28.481 --> 00:19:34.440
moments and actions, there was the potential
for a repertoire to be used and mixed.

00:19:34.800 --> 00:19:37.730
So these cursed tablets
reveal a city which

00:19:37.731 --> 00:19:40.280
has religious mixing
as part of ritual life.

00:19:42.160 --> 00:19:45.100
Cursed tablets could be produced for the
same desired outcome.

00:19:45.400 --> 00:19:48.960
They could be produced using different
people and different names.

00:19:49.420 --> 00:19:54.240
But this isn't down just to the
professional knowledge of specific scribes.

00:19:54.241 --> 00:19:56.269
There's clearly a sense of
a large variety of powers

00:19:56.270 --> 00:19:59.060
within the city, all of whom
could be invoked as needed.

00:19:59.660 --> 00:20:00.660
Thank you!

00:20:07.190 --> 00:20:12.070
Thank you very much, Charlotte,
to limit yourselves to the allotted time.

00:20:12.290 --> 00:20:15.250
So now we have time for questions,
so we have 10 minutes.

00:20:16.590 --> 00:20:19.170
There's no one have a question?

00:20:20.950 --> 00:20:23.670
Not that my own, Sofia, I also have a
couple of questions.

00:20:25.710 --> 00:20:31.350
I want to start remarking about when When
you spoke about the commission,

00:20:33.230 --> 00:20:41.230
production, authorship, that you mentioned
the fact of formulae but also mistakes or

00:20:41.231 --> 00:20:46.250
misspellings, we should say, my question
is which type of misspellings do you have

00:20:46.251 --> 00:20:49.690
because for instance in epigraphy there
are a lot of misspellings many times and

00:20:49.691 --> 00:20:55.510
we know they are professional carvers and
sometimes it's not about even not knowing

00:20:55.511 --> 00:21:00.390
the language but rather having vernacular
influence and phonetic misspellings or

00:21:00.391 --> 00:21:05.030
fluctuant spellings of difficult names
especially with the religious names that

00:21:05.031 --> 00:21:07.688
is very common to have
this fluctuation so which kind

00:21:07.689 --> 00:21:12.490
of mistakes do misspellings
do you have in your texts?

00:21:13.010 --> 00:21:19.430
This is exactly the thing so what's really
interesting is that there seems to be a

00:21:19.431 --> 00:21:25.570
consistency in the misspellings so it
doesn't seem that there are kind of errors

00:21:25.571 --> 00:21:30.010
in copying you know that certain words are
consistently misspelled in the same way

00:21:30.011 --> 00:21:36.210
and I think that that does reflect like
sort of more vernacular spellings and

00:21:36.211 --> 00:21:43.850
spellings reflecting say local
pronunciation and I also think you're

00:21:43.851 --> 00:21:50.250
right most of the spellings are concerned
with these divine names and so that does I

00:21:50.251 --> 00:21:54.570
think potentially add weight to the fact
that this is someone who doesn't

00:21:54.571 --> 00:22:02.861
frequently engage with the particular
cults or the particular But they are only.

00:22:02.862 --> 00:22:02.750
..

00:22:02.751 --> 00:22:07.530
the problem with the names is they only
appear once quite often.

00:22:07.630 --> 00:22:10.133
And so we don't know
whether that is... there's

00:22:10.134 --> 00:22:12.230
not that pattern that
we can pick up on.

00:22:12.370 --> 00:22:14.130
But you're right, it's very similar.

00:22:14.270 --> 00:22:20.890
And I think there is this potential for
the misspelling to be as a result of

00:22:20.891 --> 00:22:24.869
someone who is very
skilled in writing, being

00:22:24.870 --> 00:22:29.070
confronted with writing
something that's new to them.

00:22:29.090 --> 00:22:30.410
And that makes them more unusual.

00:22:31.570 --> 00:22:33.810
So yeah, basically what you were
expecting, Lorena.

00:22:34.190 --> 00:22:41.010
In Sofia Toriastovara and also Corsito,
they work with later material,

00:22:41.150 --> 00:22:44.430
but they were, for instance, highlighting
that sometimes the people writing,

00:22:44.710 --> 00:22:51.770
they were specialists in collecting
magical text or later priests,

00:22:52.010 --> 00:22:54.681
that they are not
specialists of gem production

00:22:54.682 --> 00:22:57.310
and magical text, but
rather of a broader thing.

00:22:57.311 --> 00:23:01.890
So you can confront with the reality that
someone who knows a formula, who knows how

00:23:01.891 --> 00:23:06.810
to write, who's a specialist in doing
compositions, but doesn't know how to do

00:23:06.811 --> 00:23:09.381
it precisely in a small
lamella, confronted with a

00:23:09.382 --> 00:23:12.290
combination of gods that
perhaps doesn't manage so well.

00:23:12.830 --> 00:23:16.310
I think this is exactly right,
because I kind of jumble throughout my

00:23:16.311 --> 00:23:20.670
talk, this idea of like scribes,
ritual professionals, you know,

00:23:20.690 --> 00:23:24.300
we ultimately don't have any
way of finding out unless we

00:23:24.301 --> 00:23:26.830
find, I don't know, some
immaculately preserved workspace.

00:23:27.310 --> 00:23:31.630
And, you know, whether these people were
experts in writing, say, like legal

00:23:31.631 --> 00:23:34.950
contracts, who just could
write and therefore were

00:23:34.951 --> 00:23:38.530
helping a friend or that
kind of co-adversary.

00:23:38.850 --> 00:23:40.606
And so I think that's really interesting
as well.

00:23:40.630 --> 00:23:46.270
Like where does the kind of literacy,
illiteracy binary stop being helpful?

00:23:46.490 --> 00:23:47.530
It's quite early on.

00:23:47.650 --> 00:23:47.946
Yeah.

00:23:47.970 --> 00:23:48.746
Thank you, Lorena.

00:23:48.770 --> 00:23:49.106
Thank you.

00:23:49.130 --> 00:23:51.050
I think now Sofia has a question.

00:23:54.670 --> 00:23:55.150
Yeah.

00:23:55.151 --> 00:23:56.151
Hi.

00:23:56.330 --> 00:23:57.290
So thank you.

00:23:57.291 --> 00:23:59.341
Thank you so much
Charlotte, it's always a

00:23:59.342 --> 00:24:01.530
pleasure to hear you
talking about curse tablets.

00:24:04.290 --> 00:24:07.630
I'm not sure if I really have a question,
but I have remarks.

00:24:10.630 --> 00:24:12.190
Actually I do also have a question.

00:24:12.490 --> 00:24:16.910
First of all, continuing along the lines
of what Lorena just said about mystics,

00:24:17.310 --> 00:24:22.890
I think we really have to be careful in
making claims such as oh okay,

00:24:23.010 --> 00:24:28.510
this is written in Greek, it has mistakes,
and then well this can be like the the

00:24:28.511 --> 00:24:31.710
writer was not that familiar with the
language he was writing in.

00:24:32.310 --> 00:24:38.290
I think this is a bit tricky because one
would really need to, you know,

00:24:38.330 --> 00:24:42.590
do a thorough study of the material before
actually confirming that hypothesis.

00:24:45.350 --> 00:24:50.130
And so the other point
was about, because I

00:24:50.131 --> 00:24:55.010
mean the text of these
tablets is quite complex.

00:24:55.370 --> 00:25:01.690
It's not that, you know, it's not like I
don't know, a tablet from from Sicily or

00:25:01.691 --> 00:25:06.710
from Athens, which is much much shorter
than this one.

00:25:06.830 --> 00:25:11.450
I mean here we are also in a different
period, we are like quite late in time,

00:25:11.570 --> 00:25:15.205
so and what struck
me a lot was that they

00:25:15.206 --> 00:25:19.790
really mention where
the people cursed live.

00:25:20.490 --> 00:25:26.530
And this is quite striking because, I don't
know, do we have parallel examples of this?

00:25:26.730 --> 00:25:32.240
Because this can actually
point to, you know, to a

00:25:32.241 --> 00:25:36.370
familiarity in part of how
this was supposed to be done.

00:25:36.650 --> 00:25:41.970
You know, because there is fundamentally
there is no rule in inverted commas that

00:25:41.971 --> 00:25:45.828
tells you, oh you really
need to name this person and

00:25:45.829 --> 00:25:49.350
where he or she lives for
the curse to be effective, right?

00:25:49.750 --> 00:25:56.710
So... I mean in part, when I look at
these tablets, I see, okay, I see mistakes,

00:25:57.070 --> 00:26:03.890
but I also see some familiarity with the
with, you know, with a specific magical

00:26:03.891 --> 00:26:08.330
religious knowledge, you know,
with invocation of specific deities,

00:26:08.470 --> 00:26:15.530
with even the way that the curse is
formulated, and at the same time I also

00:26:15.531 --> 00:26:20.290
see some new introduction... the introduction
of new features that were introduced.

00:26:20.310 --> 00:26:22.850
We do not actually have elsewhere.

00:26:23.650 --> 00:26:26.950
So, I mean, I don't know.

00:26:26.970 --> 00:26:30.130
I think these are points that one should
think about.

00:26:32.570 --> 00:26:33.870
But I don't know.

00:26:33.910 --> 00:26:34.990
I mean, yeah.

00:26:35.330 --> 00:26:36.330
What do you think?

00:26:36.710 --> 00:26:37.750
I really agree.

00:26:37.990 --> 00:26:39.430
And I think it's really interesting.

00:26:39.530 --> 00:26:42.570
That's something that, well, I was the
same as you.

00:26:42.571 --> 00:26:47.230
It's like, oh, listing exactly where
someone lives down to like which,

00:26:47.410 --> 00:26:52.190
like which quarter, which particular
buildings are nearby.

00:26:53.270 --> 00:26:58.190
I went and had a look at the kind of other
curse tablets from not just this day or

00:26:58.191 --> 00:27:00.590
this place, but across, you know,
the curse tablets.

00:27:00.850 --> 00:27:07.470
And I can't actually find anyone that
specifies anywhere that like even vaguely.

00:27:07.510 --> 00:27:11.090
I think there's one that vaguely says
about someone being in Rome.

00:27:11.210 --> 00:27:12.550
But so I wonder.

00:27:12.551 --> 00:27:14.694
I wonder whether this
is particular because

00:27:14.695 --> 00:27:16.990
they've seen this huge
population expansion.

00:27:17.690 --> 00:27:20.554
And so whether that is
something important, you know,

00:27:20.555 --> 00:27:22.610
there's lots of people
coming and going in the city.

00:27:22.770 --> 00:27:24.210
There's lots of movement of people.

00:27:24.290 --> 00:27:27.150
There's new kind of barely established
groups.

00:27:27.790 --> 00:27:31.138
Whether this is a case
of, again, I think as well as

00:27:31.178 --> 00:27:36.790
lots of people, but again,
religious variety in the city.

00:27:36.890 --> 00:27:39.610
You know, this is the person that you need
to track down.

00:27:39.890 --> 00:27:42.310
This might not be someone that these
deities.

00:27:42.311 --> 00:27:47.010
And vote are familiar with because they've
never worshipped them or whatever.

00:27:47.190 --> 00:27:50.870
So whether we need greater specificity
than just who their mother is,

00:27:51.030 --> 00:27:54.410
it may be lack of surety about exactly who
the mother is.

00:27:54.470 --> 00:27:55.586
If you've got big population.

00:27:55.610 --> 00:27:56.446
Yeah.

00:27:56.470 --> 00:27:57.670
And just sorry.

00:27:58.010 --> 00:28:02.319
I would just add a very short
point about, you know, this

00:28:02.320 --> 00:28:06.430
huge debate about whether
someone is Jewish or not Jewish.

00:28:06.690 --> 00:28:10.010
I mean, why can't we just leave that
debate aside?

00:28:10.270 --> 00:28:12.150
I mean, is that really, really important?

00:28:12.151 --> 00:28:18.690
You know, if someone was Jewish or not,
because I mean, to me, it doesn't add

00:28:18.691 --> 00:28:25.190
absolutely anything to, you know, to
the material and to the practice itself.

00:28:25.590 --> 00:28:33.590
So actually, if we go down that road,
we do risk, you know, running into some

00:28:33.591 --> 00:28:38.650
problems, especially, you know, making
claims that may not necessarily be true.

00:28:38.830 --> 00:28:41.990
So I think, I think I would set aside.

00:28:41.991 --> 00:28:47.950
A bit that debate, even though I am aware
that there is this huge, yeah,

00:28:48.650 --> 00:28:52.370
this huge discussion about, oh,
but who made this tablet?

00:28:52.490 --> 00:28:53.766
So who commissioned this tablet?

00:28:53.790 --> 00:28:55.670
So who made an amulet, you know?

00:28:55.810 --> 00:29:00.550
So I think we live very much in a
particularly, I think, particularly in the

00:29:00.551 --> 00:29:03.416
UK, we live in like in a very
kind of hard divide between

00:29:03.456 --> 00:29:06.690
not just religions, but like
sects of religions and things.

00:29:06.810 --> 00:29:09.424
And I think, I think
you're right that this

00:29:09.425 --> 00:29:11.770
doesn't map well onto
this point in history.

00:29:12.530 --> 00:29:15.094
I mean, I can see why
some people want to, to

00:29:15.095 --> 00:29:17.090
hash it out, because
we have our disciplines.

00:29:17.950 --> 00:29:19.270
It's not like, is this theology?

00:29:19.510 --> 00:29:20.406
Is this classics?

00:29:20.430 --> 00:29:21.430
Does it matter?

00:29:21.730 --> 00:29:23.090
Let's all just sit together.

00:29:23.350 --> 00:29:24.166
Thank you, Sophia.

00:29:24.190 --> 00:29:24.786
That's really kind.

00:29:24.810 --> 00:29:25.110
Thank you.

00:29:25.111 --> 00:29:26.111
Thank you.

00:29:26.950 --> 00:29:28.810
Now we have a question from Nicole.

00:29:31.530 --> 00:29:32.530
Yes.

00:29:35.230 --> 00:29:36.230
Do you hear me?

00:29:37.230 --> 00:29:38.230
Okay.

00:29:38.290 --> 00:29:40.990
Charlotte, thank you so much for your,
for your paper.

00:29:41.530 --> 00:29:42.266
Well, thank you.

00:29:42.290 --> 00:29:50.290
My question will be a general one related
to the issue of, of our meeting.

00:29:52.590 --> 00:30:00.590
Of course, you know that this kind of
documents are found everywhere in the

00:30:00.591 --> 00:30:06.330
empire for the Hippodrome, for trials and
so on.

00:30:06.750 --> 00:30:11.970
So what is the specificity of the
document?

00:30:11.971 --> 00:30:17.550
What is the coastal location for the
documents you showed?

00:30:17.730 --> 00:30:25.510
Because Hippodrome curses are found
everywhere where there is a Hippodrome.

00:30:25.770 --> 00:30:29.470
So what relationship with the coastal
settlement?

00:30:30.610 --> 00:30:36.190
I think what's really interesting
with coastal settlement

00:30:36.191 --> 00:30:41.790
is that you get a mixing of
far greater number of deities.

00:30:41.791 --> 00:30:41.950
Okay.

00:30:41.951 --> 00:30:47.030
And you get a far greater mixing of the
elements that you would find elsewhere.

00:30:47.710 --> 00:30:55.710
So in Roman settlements that are not
coastal, usually, and of course with curse

00:30:55.711 --> 00:31:00.330
tablets they're outliers, but usually you
have tablets that invoke either the local

00:31:00.331 --> 00:31:05.150
deity that's kind of pre-Roman or a
mixture of the Roman and pre-Roman deity.

00:31:06.250 --> 00:31:11.350
And that's it with maybe one or two big
Roman names like Mercury.

00:31:11.430 --> 00:31:11.930
Okay.

00:31:11.931 --> 00:31:16.870
But in the coastal settlements you get
these far more lengthy, far more

00:31:16.871 --> 00:31:24.570
complicated and far more variety on each
tablet, which I think is really interesting.

00:31:24.750 --> 00:31:27.532
So it suggests to me that
there is a population with a much

00:31:27.533 --> 00:31:32.730
greater awareness of different
powers that could be used.

00:31:33.050 --> 00:31:33.426
Yeah.

00:31:33.450 --> 00:31:34.070
Okay.

00:31:34.090 --> 00:31:39.890
So is it the coastal settlement or the
size of the city?

00:31:39.891 --> 00:31:45.010
I think it's coastal, I have to say,
because even in smaller coastal

00:31:45.011 --> 00:31:49.289
settlements, you have this
mixing and you have quite a high

00:31:49.290 --> 00:31:51.850
proportion of curse tablets
given the size of the settlement.

00:31:51.950 --> 00:31:57.490
So I think it is the fact that these
coastal settlements are open, physically

00:31:57.491 --> 00:32:01.870
open to ideas coming in and new trades,
while trades bring in ideas and things.

00:32:02.050 --> 00:32:02.786
Yeah.

00:32:02.810 --> 00:32:03.966
That's a really good question.

00:32:03.990 --> 00:32:04.506
Thank you.

00:32:04.530 --> 00:32:05.010
Okay.

00:32:05.030 --> 00:32:05.486
Thank you.

00:32:05.510 --> 00:32:06.510
Thank you.

00:32:35.250 --> 00:32:37.210
Lorena, the Zoom is muted.

00:32:37.330 --> 00:32:39.010
Yeah, we have lost the microphone.

00:32:40.030 --> 00:32:41.030
Sorry, sorry.

00:32:43.930 --> 00:32:44.930
You are mute.

00:32:45.050 --> 00:32:46.750
We couldn't hear you, but we can now.

00:32:46.850 --> 00:32:47.646
Thank you, Lorena.

00:32:47.670 --> 00:32:48.246
Thank you.

00:32:48.270 --> 00:32:49.106
Okay.

00:32:49.130 --> 00:32:50.130
Okay.

00:32:50.390 --> 00:32:51.390
Yeah.