Books by Celia Sanchez Natalias
Defixiones, also known as curse tablets, are one of the most revealing sources for ancient magico... more Defixiones, also known as curse tablets, are one of the most revealing sources for ancient magico-religious practices. Born of rancour, anger, desire, love, envy, or just out of desperation, curse tablets were a strategy for obtaining ‘individual justice’ for those who could not accomplish their purposes through the available means, due to a lack of knowledge, power or legal/economical resources. In this volume, the reader will find a detailed catalogue that discusses 535 curse tablets written in Latin and a wide range of local languages. The catalogue is preceded by a full introduction in which the main features of these inscriptions are discussed together with leading scholarship. Such a detailed yet global study of these texts sheds light on various aspects of curses that vary on a regional basis, thus showing how this magico-religious technology was not only adopted but also adapted in new and creative ways by the local populations throughout the Roman West.
Papers by Celia Sanchez Natalias
Journal of Cognitive Historiography, 2024
[PDF available on request] After some introductory remarks on current approaches to curse tablets... more [PDF available on request] After some introductory remarks on current approaches to curse tablets, this article focuses on the defixiones from Britannia, analyzing the idiosyncratic features of this corpus to demonstrate how the island’s inhabitants adopted and then adapted this magico-religious technology. In particular, it examines a group of curses in which the name of the practitioner is clearly stated. This specific piece of information has been understood by previous scholarship as a reflection of the fearlessness that these practitioners (who were supposedly asking for something fair) felt towards the gods. Nevertheless, this article interprets the use of names as a reflection of the perception that these practitioners had of the god’s omniscience. Additionally, this research also takes into account the context where these artefacts were deposited and the array of rituals that took place in those spaces. Tellingly, most of the curse tablets from Britannia with this feature (i.e. the name of the practitioner) come from sanctuaries and shrines, a context that could have promoted different ways for practitioners to conceive of the cursing ritual and the types of relationship that it created between the author of the curse and the invoked deity.
Magic and Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World. Studies in Honor of Christopher A. Faraone , 2023
[PDF available on request]
Discovered in Hadrumetum at the beginning of the 20th century, a smal... more [PDF available on request]
Discovered in Hadrumetum at the beginning of the 20th century, a small collection of curse tablets travelled to Paris, where they entered the collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in 1903. These documents provide a perfect case to study curse tablets and their material context in a holistic way, from production/composition to ritual and intentional deposit in a grave. The aim of this contribution is to offer the results of a new autopsy carried out on two of these Latin curses (DT 277 and 278), which are agonistic in nature and were written by the same professional practitioner before being deposited in the same tomb. Among other results, I present here the new textual and iconographical data discovered during the autopsy, together with a new proposal for the relative placement of the different fragments, which, in my opinion, belong not to two but to a single tablet.
Pruniccia: un éclairage inédit sur l'espace périurbain septentrional de Mariana, 2021
Greece & Rome, 2022
This article deals with curse tablets against thieves, also known as 'prayers for justice'. In th... more This article deals with curse tablets against thieves, also known as 'prayers for justice'. In the first part, I offer a short introduction to the topic and the scholarly debate surrounding the definition of this type of inscription, concluding that a more emic approach can help us understand the complex nature of a technology that, far from being monolithic, evolved over time and space. In the second part, I compare the literary and epigraphic evidence (in Greek and Latin), pointing out the similarities and differences between our different sources of information. Finally, I turn to the handful of Latin curse tablets from Roman Britain in which the stolen object's value is divided between the principal and the invoked gods. In my view, this type of transaction should be analysed as a new take on the more traditional votum, in which legal concepts such as obligatio or ownership also play an important role. By establishing an almost contractual agreement with a deity, practitioners obtained not only divine assistance but also tangible evidence of the god's participation.
Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 224, 2022
Religion in the Roman Empire, 2019
Choosing Magic. Gordon, R., Marco, F. and Piranomonte, M. (eds.) with the assistance of C. Sánchez Natalías, 2020
Choosing Magic. Gordon, R., Marco, F. and Piranomonte, M. (eds.) with the assistance of C. Sánchez Natalías, 2020
Choosing Magic. Gordon, R., Marco, F. and Piranomonte, M. (eds.) with the assistance of C. Sánchez Natalías, 2020
Material Approaches to Roman Magic, 2017
The purpose of this paper is to examine an interesting case of aggressive magic dated to the IV c... more The purpose of this paper is to examine an interesting case of aggressive magic dated to the IV century AD and discovered in the Roman sanctuary of the goddess Anna Perenna. The poppet represents a man trapped in the coils of a snake, who was additionally attached to a defixio and enclosed in a series of three miniature leaden cinerary urns. The ensemble was finally deposited within the cistern of the fountain, where the victim was consecrated to the goddess and her nymphs.
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Books by Celia Sanchez Natalias
Papers by Celia Sanchez Natalias
Discovered in Hadrumetum at the beginning of the 20th century, a small collection of curse tablets travelled to Paris, where they entered the collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in 1903. These documents provide a perfect case to study curse tablets and their material context in a holistic way, from production/composition to ritual and intentional deposit in a grave. The aim of this contribution is to offer the results of a new autopsy carried out on two of these Latin curses (DT 277 and 278), which are agonistic in nature and were written by the same professional practitioner before being deposited in the same tomb. Among other results, I present here the new textual and iconographical data discovered during the autopsy, together with a new proposal for the relative placement of the different fragments, which, in my opinion, belong not to two but to a single tablet.
Discovered in Hadrumetum at the beginning of the 20th century, a small collection of curse tablets travelled to Paris, where they entered the collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in 1903. These documents provide a perfect case to study curse tablets and their material context in a holistic way, from production/composition to ritual and intentional deposit in a grave. The aim of this contribution is to offer the results of a new autopsy carried out on two of these Latin curses (DT 277 and 278), which are agonistic in nature and were written by the same professional practitioner before being deposited in the same tomb. Among other results, I present here the new textual and iconographical data discovered during the autopsy, together with a new proposal for the relative placement of the different fragments, which, in my opinion, belong not to two but to a single tablet.
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