|
Defixiones
A curse tablet ( la, tabella defixionis, defixio; el, κατάδεσμος, katadesmos) is a small tablet with a curse written on it from the Greco-Roman world. Its name originated from the Greek and Latin words for "pierce" and "bind". 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 Curse tablets are typically very thin sheets of lead with the text scratched on in tiny letters. They were then often rolled, folded, or pierced with nails, and the tablets were then usually placed beneath the ground: either buried in graves or tombs, thrown into wells or pools, sequestered in underground sanctuaries, or nailed to the walls of temples. Tablets were also used for love spells and when used in this manner they were placed inside the home of the desired target. They are sometimes discovered along with small dolls or figurines (sometimes inaccurately referred to a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aquae Sulis
Aquae Sulis (Latin for ''Waters of Sulis'') was a small town in the Roman province of Britannia. Today it is the English city of Bath, Somerset. The Antonine Itinerary register of Roman roads lists the town as ''Aquis Sulis.'' Ptolemy records the town as ''Aquae calidae'' (warm waters) in his 2nd-century work ''Geographia''. Development Baths and temple complex The Romans probably began building a formal temple complex at Aquae Sulis in the AD 60s. The Romans had probably arrived in the area shortly after their arrival in Britain in AD 43 and there is evidence that their military road, the Fosse Way, crossed the river Avon at Bath. An early Roman military presence has been found just to the North-East of the bath complex in the Walcot area of modern Bath. Not far from the crossing point of their road, they would have been attracted by the large natural hot spring which had been a shrine of the Celtic Brythons, dedicated to their goddess Sulis. This spring is a natural mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bath Curse Tablets
The Bath curse tablets are a collection of about 130 Roman era curse tablets (or ''defixiones'' in Latin) discovered in 1979/1980 in the English city of Bath. The tablets were requests for intervention of the goddess Sulis Minerva in the return of stolen goods and to curse the perpetrators of the thefts. Inscribed mostly in British Latin, they have been used to attest to the everyday spoken vernacular of the Romano-British population of the second to fourth centuries AD. They have also been recognised by UNESCO in its Memory of the World UK Register. Discovery and description The Roman baths and temple dedicated to the goddess Sulis Minerva in the English city of Bath (founded by the Romans as ''Aquae Sulis'') were excavated between 1978 and 1983 by a team led by Barry Cunliffe and Peter Davenport. In 1979/1980, around 130 tablets were discovered in an excavation of the "Sacred Spring" under the King's Bath. This excavation was made possible by the removal of the concrete fl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bath, Somerset
Bath () is a city in the Bath and North East Somerset unitary area in the county of Somerset, England, known for and named after its Roman-built baths. At the 2021 Census, the population was 101,557. Bath is in the valley of the River Avon, west of London and southeast of Bristol. The city became a World Heritage Site in 1987, and was later added to the transnational World Heritage Site known as the " Great Spa Towns of Europe" in 2021. Bath is also the largest city and settlement in Somerset. The city became a spa with the Latin name ' ("the waters of Sulis") 60 AD when the Romans built baths and a temple in the valley of the River Avon, although hot springs were known even before then. Bath Abbey was founded in the 7th century and became a religious centre; the building was rebuilt in the 12th and 16th centuries. In the 17th century, claims were made for the curative properties of water from the springs, and Bath became popular as a spa town in the Georgian era. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syncretism
Syncretism () is the practice of combining different beliefs and various schools of thought. Syncretism involves the merging or assimilation of several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, thus asserting an underlying unity and allowing for an inclusive approach to other faiths. Syncretism also occurs commonly in expressions of art and culture, known as eclecticism, as well as in politics, known as syncretic politics. Nomenclature The English word is first attested in the early 17th century, from Modern Latin , drawing on Greek grc, συγκρητισμός, synkretismos, labels=none, supposedly meaning "Cretan federation", but this is a spurious etymology from the naive idea in Plutarch's 1st-century AD essay on "Fraternal Love (Peri Philadelphias)" in his collection '' Moralia''. He cites the example of the Cretans, who compromised and reconciled their differences and came together in alliance when faced with extern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charaktêres
''Charaktêres'' (singular: charaktêr) are letter-shaped signs lacking both semantic and phonetic correlations, which were used as magic signs in ancient literary documents. Forms and use In her 2013 thesis Kirsten Dzwiza studied 94 magical texts and recorded 699 different ''charaktêres'' occurring over 943 times. The character forms are mostly nonsensical and may include ring-letters, balls, points, closed elements, separate strokes, linear elements, small element, and hieroglyphs. The most common forms consists of asterisks and configurations of straight lines with small circles at their ends. The signs appear mostly on apotropaic spells and phylacteries, but also on a few ancient curse tablets. They may appear as loose groups of characters on a magical gemstone or spell to large groups alongside other figures on a magical text or table. They are often used alongside comprehensible arcane words, like the '' voces magicae'' in the texts of the Greek Magical Papyri. Chara ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boustrophedon
Boustrophedon is a style of writing in which alternate lines of writing are reversed, with letters also written in reverse, mirror-style. This is in contrast to modern European languages, where lines always begin on the same side, usually the left. The original term comes from grc, βουστροφηδόν, ', a composite of , ', "ox"; , ', "turn"; and the adverbial suffix -, -', "like, in the manner of" – that is, "like the ox turns hile plowing. It is mostly seen in ancient manuscripts and other inscriptions. It was a common way of writing on stone in ancient Greece, becoming less and less popular throughout the Hellenistic period. Many ancient scripts, such as Etruscan, Safaitic, and Sabaean, were frequently or even typically written boustrophedon. Reverse boustrophedon The wooden boards and other incised artefacts of Rapa Nui also bear a boustrophedonic script called Rongorongo, which remains undeciphered. In Rongorongo, the text in alternate lines was rotate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palindrome
A palindrome is a word, number, phrase, or other sequence of symbols that reads the same backwards as forwards, such as the words ''madam'' or ''racecar'', the date and time ''11/11/11 11:11,'' and the sentence: "A man, a plan, a canal – Panama". The 19-letter Finnish word ''saippuakivikauppias'' (a soapstone vendor), is the longest single-word palindrome in everyday use, while the 12-letter term ''tattarrattat'' (from James Joyce in '' Ulysses'') is the longest in English. The word ''palindrome'' was introduced by English poet and writer Henry Peacham in 1638.Henry Peacham, ''The Truth of our Times Revealed out of One Mans Experience'', 1638p. 123/ref> The concept of a palindrome can be dated to the 3rd-century BCE, although no examples survive; the first physical examples can be dated to the 1st-century CE with the Latin acrostic word square, the Sator Square (contains both word and sentence palindromes), and the 4th-century Greek Byzantine sentence palindrome '' ni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clement Of Alexandria
Titus Flavius Clemens, also known as Clement of Alexandria ( grc , Κλήμης ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς; – ), was a Christian theologian and philosopher who taught at the Catechetical School of Alexandria. Among his pupils were Origen and Alexander of Jerusalem. A convert to Christianity, he was an educated man who was familiar with classical Greek philosophy and literature. As his three major works demonstrate, Clement was influenced by Hellenistic philosophy to a greater extent than any other Christian thinker of his time, and in particular, by Plato and the Stoics. His secret works, which exist only in fragments, suggest that he was familiar with pre-Christian Jewish esotericism and Gnosticism as well. In one of his works he argued that Greek philosophy had its origin among non-Greeks, claiming that both Plato and Pythagoras were taught by Egyptian scholars. Clement is usually regarded as a Church Father. He is venerated as a saint in Coptic Christianity, Ea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stanley J
Stanley may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Stanley'' (1972 film), an American horror film * ''Stanley'' (1984 film), an Australian comedy * ''Stanley'' (1999 film), an animated short * ''Stanley'' (1956 TV series), an American situation comedy * ''Stanley'' (2001 TV series), an American animated series Other uses in arts and entertainment * ''Stanley'' (play), by Pam Gems, 1996 * Stanley Award, an Australian Cartoonists' Association award * '' Stanley: The Search for Dr. Livingston'', a video game * Stanley (Cars), a character in ''Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales'' * '' The Stanley Parable'', a 2011 video game developed by Galactic Cafe, and its titular character, Stanley Businesses and organisations * Stanley, Inc., American information technology company * Stanley Aviation, American aerospace company * Stanley Black & Decker, formerly The Stanley Works, American hardware manufacturer ** Stanley knife, a utility knife * Stanley bottle, a brand ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voces Mysticae
''Voces magicae'' (singular: ''vox magica'', "magical names" or "magical words") are Ancient Roman magical words, written in either Ancient Greek or Latin. Definition and use They were compensable, pronounceable, but nonsensical words with alleged arcane origins which were used in spells, charms, and amulets to enhance their magical potency. The ''voces magicae'' were related to the Greek Ephesia Grammata. They may include alternative names of gods or other unusual phrases which may have been intended as the secret, authoritative true name of certain gods. As an example: in the Greek Magical Papyri, the first spell of the first papyrus intended to summon a daimon assistant and included the phrase (in translation) " hisis your authoritative name: ARBATH ARBAOTH BAKCHABRE". See also * Magic in the Greco-Roman world * Magical formula References {{Authority control Ancient Greek religion Ancient Roman religion Greco-Roman The Greco-Roman civilization (; also Greco-Ro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Twelfth Dynasty Of Egypt
The Twelfth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (Dynasty XII) is considered to be the apex of the Middle Kingdom by Egyptologists. It often is combined with the Eleventh, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth dynasties under the group title, Middle Kingdom. Some scholars only consider the 11th and 12th dynasties to be part of the Middle Kingdom. History The chronology of the Twelfth Dynasty is the most stable of any period before the New Kingdom. The Turin Royal Canon gives 213 years (1991–1778 BC). Manetho stated that it was based in Thebes, but from contemporary records it is clear that the first king of this dynasty, Amenemhat I, moved its capital to a new city named "Amenemhat-itj-tawy" ("Amenemhat the Seizer of the Two Lands"), more simply called, Itjtawy. The location of Itjtawy has not been discovered yet, but is thought to be near the Fayyum, probably near the royal graveyards at el-Lisht. The order of its rulers of the Twelfth Dynasty is well known from several sources: two lists ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Execration Texts
Execration texts, also referred to as proscription lists, are ancient Egyptian hieratic texts, listing enemies of the pharaoh, most often enemies of the Egyptian state or troublesome foreign neighbors. The texts were most often written upon statuettes of bound foreigners, bowls, or blocks of clay or stone, which were subsequently destroyed. The ceremonial process of breaking the names and burying them was intended to be a sort of sympathetic magic that would affect the persons or entities named in the texts. The fragments were usually placed near tombs or ritual sites. This practice was most common during times of conflict with the Asiatic neighbors of Egypt. Historical periods of execration texts Execration texts are attested from the late Old Kingdom ( 2686–2160 BCE) up into the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1069). The earliest execration texts date to the 6th dynasty (24th–22nd century BCE) during Egypt's Old Kingdom. They are statuettes made from unbaked clay and fashioned ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_-_Foto_G._Dall'Orto.jpg "Click for more on -> Clement Of Alexandria")
.png "Click for more on -> Voces Mysticae")
