Monday, April 10, 2023

 

A Curse Tablet from Portugal

Curse tablet from Alcácer do Sal, Portugal, Année épigraphique (2001) 1135 = Hispania Epigraphica 11 (2001) 705 (online database record no. 20906), translation and Latin text from Henk S. Versnel, "Prayers For Justice, East And West: New Finds and Publications Since 1990," in Magical Practice in the Latin West. Papers from the International Conference held at the University of Zaragoza, 30 Sept.-1st Oct. 2005 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), pp. 275-355 (at 297-298):
Lord, great and invincible, you who have received the body of Attis, please receive the body of the one who took away my baggage, who robbed me (by stealing it) from the house of Hispanus (or 'the Spaniard'). His body (viz. the thief's) and his soul I give (you), I confer on you in order that I may find my possessions. Then I vow to give you a four-footed sacrificial victim, Lord Attis, if I find that thief. Lord Attis, I implore you by your Nocturnus, that you make me obtain my wish as soon as possible.

Domine Megare
invicte, tu qui Attidis
corpus accepisti, accipias cor-
pus eius qui meas sarcinas
supstulit, qui me compilavit        5
de domo Hispani. Illius corpus
tibi et anima(m) do dono ut meas
res inveniam. Tunc tibi (h)ostia(m)
quadrupede(m) do(mi)ne, Attis, voveo,
si eu(m) fure(m) invenero. Dom(i)ne        10
Attis, te rogo per tuum Nocturnum
ut me quam primu(m) compote(m) facias.
See also Roger Tomlin, "Cursing A Thief In Iberia And Britain," Magical Practice in the Latin West, pp. 245-273 (at 260-264), from which I borrow this drawing of the tablet (p. 261):
Thanks to my friend Eric Thomson for this photograph of the curse tablet (click once or twice to enlarge):



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