Some remarks on a magical nail with an apotropaic inscription addressed to Artemis.

URBANOVÁ, Daniela and Barta ANDREA. Some remarks on a magical nail with an apotropaic inscription addressed to Artemis. In Sixth International Workshop on Computational Latin Dialectology. 2023.

Basic information

• Original name: Some remarks on a magical nail with an apotropaic inscription addressed to Artemis.
• Name in Czech: Několik poznámek k magickému hřebíku s apotropaickým nápisem adresovaným Artemidě
• Authors: URBANOVÁ, Daniela and Barta ANDREA.
• Edition: Sixth International Workshop on Computational Latin Dialectology, 2023.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Presentations at conferences
• Field of Study: 60202 Specific languages
• Country of publisher: Hungary
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: URL
• Organization unit: Faculty of Arts
• Keywords (in Czech): magický hřebík; apotropaický nápis; Artemis; Salomon
• Keywords in English: magical nail; apotropaic inscription; Artemis; Salomon
• Tags: International impact

Abstract

The most famous Latin magical nail with quite a long inscription carved on all four sides addresses the dogs of Artemis and Solomon. First acquired by Hon. W. Temple, Ambassador to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in the first half of the 19th century (1832–1856), the nail came into the possession of The British Museum in London following Temple’s death. It was first published by Orioli (s.d.) who did not state any information about the archaeological context or the provenance. This was followed by another partial publication with a drawing by W. Henzen in 1846 which generated a vivid scholarly discussion in the following century and a half, see recently Bevilacqua 2001. Both the poorly readable letterforms and the substandard spelling raise several questions about the interpretation. Nevertheless, the systematic evaluation of the writing mistakes affords the opportunity to examine the content from a new point of view. In this contribution we offer a new reading based on high resolution photographs and an autopsy with remarks on the possible interpretation of the inscription.

Links

• GA21-06319S, research and development project: Name: Performativní formule v epigrafických dokumentech antické středomořské tradice

Investor: Czech Science Foundation