Two Ancient Curses rediscovered at Bologna

[S. Marcer]

Maybe you already know this “discovery”…

Two tablets have been rediscoveries in 2009 in the Civico Museo Archeologico di Bologna (Italy). The researchers don't know with certainty the origin of the tablets, but they know the victims of the curses: a Roman senator named Fistus and a veterinarian named Porcellus. Written on by 2 different people during the late Empire, around 1.600 years ago, the texts are in Latin with Greek invocations. Sánchez Natalías' has deciphered the two curses.

Here the article with some images:

http://www.livescience.com/20483-black-m...urses.html


[attachment=4371]museo-archeologico-civico-di-bologna2.jpg[/attachment]


Best!

S.M.

[Nathan Ross]

"Destroy, crush, kill, strangle Porcello and wife Maurilla. Their soul, heart, buttocks, liver ..."

"Crush, kill Fistus the senator... May Fistus dilute, languish, sink and may all his limbs dissolve ..."


I love the language on these curse tablets - so lurid and explicit...

The curse invocation to 'Zmyrna' (Papyri Graeci Magicae 1:121-4) is particularly alarming: "...you must burn her brain, the woman I love, burn it completely and rip out her entrails and shed her blood, drop by drop, until she comes to me!" hock:

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

"Destroy, crush, kill, strangle Porcello and wife Maurilla. Their soul, heart, buttocks, liver ..."

"Crush, kill Fistus the senator... May Fistus dilute, languish, sink and may all his limbs dissolve ..."


I love the language on these curse tablets - so lurid and explicit...

The curse invocation to 'Zmyrna' (Papyri Graeci Magicae 1:121-4) is particularly alarming: "...you must burn her brain, the woman I love, burn it completely and rip out her entrails and shed her blood, drop by drop, until she comes to me!" hock:

Hmmmm, I think in this case, the chase may be better than the catch!! hock: :roll:

[Vindex]

How marvellous! I, too, am in awe of the langauge and vitriol of ancient curses. So lucid.

Thank you for sharing.

[S. Marcer]

An astounding document!
Personally I love the iconographic representation of the divinities and the "mummified victim." The arms crossed, the name written on both of his arms… everything so clear and well preserved!

[Nathan Ross]

I was just looking back through this thread, and I've found a rather more scholarly article about the second of the curse tablets from Bologna, with the full text and translation.

Anyone wanting to know more exactly how the senator Fistus is to be crushed and dissolved (!) might find this interesting:

Re-Reading of Defixio Bologna 2